Writes of the Stranded
by PsykoSensei
Summary: Ruby and Yang were supposed to go on a summer vacation after Ruby's graduation, but their summer won't be spent lying on a beach drinking smoothies. Instead, they, along with four other survivors, must use everything they know to survive until help arrives, or to escape the island.
1. Chapter 1: Boarding

_June 5th, 2018_

 _So...this is my journal, a little keepsake that my sister got me for graduation. I guess I'm going to be writing in this every so often—maybe when I'm bored and just need to do something. Still, the journal is nice: it's leatherbound, came with its own pen, and it has me and my sisters face on the cover. I can't really complain, it's a nice graduation present. Oh, speaking of graduation presents—my dad got me and Yang a trip to Fiji. Yay, so excited. I don't know anything about Fiji, other than that's where my mom and dad got married. I've read it's a really beautiful place._

 _I guess I'll find out when we get there. It sucks only being 17 though, I wish I was born the same time as Yang. Being an adult and roaming by myself—on second thought, maybe being with Yang and *not* by myself is better._

 _Ok, that's all for now, cya at Fiji._

Ruby clicked her pen closed and slid it into the spine of her journal, closing it and tying the strap around and twisting it secure. She had the journal for four days now, making today the first time she ever wrote in it; it felt satisfying to her, and as her sister looked over she appeared pleased that her gift was finally seeing some use.

"So, what'd you write about?" Yang asked with her slightly toothy smirk.

Ruby shrugged. "Just how were going to Fiji and I have no idea what it's going to be like," she said.

"You'll love it, this is gonna be my second time—the water is amazing."

Ruby rolled her eyes. Of course Yang had been to Fiji—she would not stop talking about it for weeks after she came back home from the island. It was really through Yang that Ruby ever knew anything about Fiji at all. Now that Ruby was going she could not help but feel ecstatic about it. Though part of her thought Yang forgot this was Ruby's trip, because the fact did not stop Yang from bringing her motorcycle. How she even got the vehicle through customs was beyond her...but her sister got it through nonetheless.

The next moment, the plane's PA system dinged for everyone's attention. A woman's voice blared over the passengers heads:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Noriah and I'm your chief flight attendant. On behalf of Captain Damein and the entire crew, welcome aboard Delta Airlines flight 237, non-stop service from Houston, Texas to Fiji at Nadi International Airport. Our flight time will be of seventeen to eighteen hours. At this time, make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position and that your seat belt is correctly fastened. Also, your portable electronic devices must be set to 'airplane' mode until an announcement is made upon arrival. Please stow any belongings in your carry on bags and make sure you have them stored either up in the storage compartments or under the seat in front of you. Thank you."

" _Ladies and gentlemen, this is_ I don't freaking care—just get us to Fiji so we can tan and swim," Yang said very gleefully. All Ruby could do was shrivel into her seat and wait.

Just like any other airplane, the announcements continued with their walkthroughs of safety procedures and notifying for attendants to be ready for takeoff. It was all very monotonous to Ruby, having to hear the words drone on and on needlessly when she knew no one was listening—except those who actually bothered to listen because they were too bored to do anything else.

" _Agh-_ excuse me, you clearly saw me coming," an angry voice growled. Ruby looked towards the front to see a girl about Yang's age who looked about ready to fight another passenger. She was clad in white all the way down to her hair—even her light blue eyes were nearly white too. She was looking down at another girl about the same age who wore a complete contrast of attire—the only deviancy of the pallet was her pale skin and bright amber eyes.

The girl in black stumbled on her knees as she scrambled to pick up the spilled contents of her bag—which was largely a coalition of books, a large notebook, and what appeared to be a small case of pens and pencils. Ruby had half a mind to think this girl was some kind of artist.

The girl in white continued to bark at her, annoyed that the girl in black had not acknowledged her yet, "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I- I-..." she finally cracked, but no other words came. She was scared. Embarrassed maybe. She could not bring herself to look up at the angered passenger. As soon as she finished collecting her things and stowing them back in her bag she stood up, she was actually taller than the girl in white...but the way she tightly hugged her bag under her chin gave everyone the impression that she was shorter—having to slouch over it like a mother were protecting a child.

"If you don't have anywhere to be, off the plane would be a start."

Ruby felt bad for the girl in black, as did Yang—and Yang was the first to get up and do something. Ruby reached out to grab her sisters arm...but her sister was already to the other side of the plane before she could do anything. Ruby then resolved to watch as Yang did what she always would—try to help and potentially make herself look like a fool.

Yang positioned herself between the two girls, looking the one in white right in the eyes as she towered over her.

"I know you," said Yang, "you're that girl from Fashion—what's your name- Schnee...yeah; Weiss Schnee." The way Yang spoke to her seemed antagonistic-and it worked.

Weiss took a step back. "Yes, _I'm Weiss—oh everyone just wants to run into me_ , don't they?" she growled with a hint of sarcasm.

Then Yang remembered the announcements from earlier. "It's past time you took your seat—we'll be taking off soon."

Weiss narrowed her eyes at Yang, then she looked behind Yang to spot the girl she was protecting and said, "You better hope you're not on the next plane I'm on."

With that, Weiss stormed past both of them, Yang had to carefully push the other girl out of the way to clear the path. She turned to face the girl and asked her, "What was that about?"

The girl in black took a moment to answer. Yang could see she was still shaken from what just happened.

"I- I wasn't looking where I was going," she finally said, "thanks for your help." Ever so slightly her cheeks began to go pink, blushing. Yang thought it had to do with what just transpired. The girl then turned away...but before she could get too far Yang asked her:

"Wait—what's your name?"

The girl stopped again, this time only turning her head slightly. She quietly muttered, "Names Blake," before resuming to her seat.

Ruby had been watching the entire time, actually surprised that one fight Yang got in did not turn out with someone's nose broken. She was really quite impressed.

As Yang took her seat again Ruby asked her, "When did you start defusing arguments without your fists?"

Yang laughed. "I stopped when Dad told me to take care of you this month—and it looks like I succeeded." Without another word she leaned back with her hands between her head and headrest and she shut her eyes.

Right on the hour the planes engines roared to life, louder and louder they wailed their mechanical screams as the jet turbines spun faster and faster. The entire plane then began to rumble and rattle as it propelled itself forward, slowly gaining the speed it needed to lift off of the ground. Everything began to feel heavier as soon as the plane reached high enough speed, finally lifting itself into the air meter by meter until all that could be seen was the horizon, the very subtle curve of the surface of the world as the plane broke the clouds minutes later.

Ruby shifted her jaw back slightly, she was trying to pop her eardrums as the air pressure tightened inside the passengers cabin. Even the air was slightly harder to breath, literally like her airways were blocked and she could only fill her lungs slowly. It was not like she was suffocating...but it was slightly uncomfortable. She had only been on an airplane three times in her life, and this third time would prove to be the longest. Ruby tried to pass the time by finding something to do in her seat, settling for a magazine tucked in the pocket right in front of her. The magazine was nothing very special—just exposays about the latest cars, makeup techniques, gossip about politicians and their wives, everything that would beg bored eyes to stare at when the only other thing to view was what was out the oval shaped window.

With one less than stellar magazine done, Ruby moved on to another. This one was the Fashion magazine Yang mentioned earlier, though Weiss must not have been cover story news as she was not on the cover, she had to be someone who might have been something like the next best thing—someone up and coming. This would be proven correct as Ruby found an entire section dedicated to Weiss near the middle of the magazine, merely a single page worth of info about a new and young model whose father owned a new clothing line. Ruby actually found it funny that Weiss was smiling in the picture, that this was the same girl who seemed ready to kill someone just by being walked into. She hated to imagine what her makeup artists have to go through to not get on her bad side. Beyond that was just more of the latest fashion statements that made it to print.

Once Ruby grew bored of the fashion magazine she moved on to a magazine she actually found hidden between the seats in front of her. A Gun's and Ammo magazine, her favorite—and it was the latest issue. She loved guns. Ever since her first hunting trip with her sister and her father she wanted nothing more than to have her own collection of guns—more so than having her own car. It was something about the boom they made and how quickly the bullet traveled in just a fraction of a second after pulling the trigger, the momentary high of adrenaline that started pumping in anticipation of using a tool used for everything from target practice to fighting wars. She loved how something so complex and intimidating was also so easy to use. She wished she was old enough to own her own gun, like Yang (at least with rifles), _just four more years and I'll be free to get whatever gun I want._

An hour would pass as Ruby remained engrossed in the magazine. Anyone would find it impossible for someone to remain so interesting in something so mundane as a magazine. Ruby took her time reading about the stories of men and women who protected themselves in their homes; stopping a shoplifter robbing a store; their children taking home their first fifteen point buck—she loved all of them. She greatly admired the bravery of the people who put their lives on the line to protect others. If there was one thing Ruby knew for certain, it was that the best way to protect yourself from someone with a gun was with another gun.

Suddenly the plane began to rumble. Turbulence. The force of the shaking caused one of the passengers to tumble to the floor, spilling his drink all over Ruby's magazine as well as hitting his head on her armrest. Both Ruby and Yang jumped in their seats after the incident.

"Hey, watch it!" Ruby hissed, quickly wiping what was spilled tea off of her magazine, and then her pants, and then coming to realize she would not succeed in either task.

The blonde stumbled to his feet again, pressing his hand against his head. There was blood seeping from between his fingers. Ruby noticed this and immediately went from angry to concerned. "Oh, you're bleeding—here, take this," she said.

The blonde took a few paper napkins that Ruby offered, he quickly set them between his head and hand.

"Thanks—and I'm really sorry about that," he said. The apology came out more forcefully than he would have liked.

Ruby shrugged. "It's just a magazine…" but really, it was the only thing she actually found worth reading.

Without another word, the blonde moved through the array of seats, taking care not to take a spill the way he did again.

Ruby looked at her magazine. It was soggy—surefire sign that it was ruined. _Great,_ she thought, _something I actually enjoy is ruined by some dumb accident…"lucky me,"_ she then whispered. Ruby looked around, everyone was pretty much asleep. Then she remembered that the plane took off at sundown, of course there were people looking to get some rest after a long day of dealing with which luggage was theirs and getting through customs. All they wanted at this point was to get some much needed rest.

Without anything else to do, and after flying for about three hours, Ruby decided to go to sleep herself.

* * *

Several hours have passed since takeoff. Captain Damein figured there would be seven or eight more hours of flying before the plane reached its destination. Despite everything operating as normal he kept double checking and triple checking the control panel. Damein chalked it up to late night jitters after flying for so long with no rest, even his co-pilot was asleep.

The only other person awake was Noriah. Unlike himself, Noriah was not from America—she was actually from France. She did not seem to mind staying awake, probably due to the fact that it was actually daytime in the afternoon in France right about now.

Damein checked his watch, it was six in the morning, he had been piloting all night. It was odd that he was not yet tired. Maybe he was and it was just endorphins keeping him awake. He knew when the plane landed he would be scolded for not taking a break from flying...but he could not help himself. More than anything, he felt more comfortable when he was the one in control. That is what he thought had brought him to become flight captain so quickly.

"Captain, you should probably get some rest, let Mr. Daniels take over for a while," said Noriah.

But Damein did not want to. He was already so close to the destination—and the co pilot was new to the whole thing. He did not want to risk anything going wrong in Daniels care. Though despite his visible disagreement (namely his breath slowing and stiffening his shoulders) Noriah insisted with her hand on his shoulder, using the other to wake Daniels.

Finally, Damein conceded. "Fine, I'll take a break—I needed to use the men's room anyway…" which was a lie, he was perfectly fine as far of needs were concerned...but he went anyway. He stood up from his seat and made his way out of the pilots cabin.

As Daniels took control he gave a quick look at the control panel. To him all seemed normal. He proceeded to handle the wheel about the same way Damein did.

But what he did not see was how Damein left. His hand brushed against the fuel flow switches.

* * *

A pair of tired, silver eyes slowly fluttered open. Ruby looked out the window and saw that it was daybreak, and Ocean was as far as the eye could see. She knew they had to be in the South Pacific by now—only a few more hours and she and her sister could finally enjoy themselves on a beach.

Something felt...off, though. There was a sensation in the air that felt as though everything was lighter. Then she remembered that this normal for a number of reasons; descent, self adjustment to name a couple—nothing to worry about.

Everyone else was asleep still, including her sister (who was already a fairly heavy sleeper), so Ruby decided to take this moment of wakefulness to freshen up. She got up from her seat and took her bag with her to the women's restroom.

The lightweight sensation continued on as she walked through the aisles of seats, being extra careful not to disturb the likely not-a-morning-person Weiss on her way there. A few more rows down, Ruby then spotted the blonde from earlier, he was sound asleep next to a girl with some of the brightest red hair she had ever seen on a person. Neither bothered the other by resting their head on their shoulder, so she figured they must have been just random strangers in the same seats. The blonde still had the napkin on his head, stained with dried blood and likely stuck to his head.

Once Ruby made it to the restroom she found the lock read _occupied_ in its signature red letters. Someone must have had the same idea as her—it was annoying, but not uncommon. It would be five minutes later that she finally brought herself to knock on the door.

" _Wha- oh, one second…"_ the voice sounded tired through the door. Ruby could hear a series of knocks inside. A minute later the door finally opened; it was Blake—and she was holding a small pillow along with her large notebook and drawing kit. Ruby had to wonder if she had actually been sleeping in the restroom the whole time. Then Blake yawned, apparently she had been asleep. "Here, it's all you- _woah!"_

The plane experienced turbulence again, sending Blake and Ruby falling to their knees. Blakes notepad fell on the floor with the pages wide open facing the carpet. Ruby picked it up to hand it back to her...but before she did she caught a glimpse of what was within: the face of a man—or rather, two faces. Blake practically snatched it out of Ruby's hand before she could read too much into it. Without another word, Blake stumbled back to wherever she was seated. Ruby decided not to think much about it, proceeding to return back to what she was doing.

" _Yep,"_ whispered Ruby, " _like a porta-potty—a very fancy porta-potty."_ She wondered how Blake was able to sleep in this cramped little room, it certainly was not comfortable, nor was it accommodating. It was simply unwelcoming. Still, it was enough space for her to freshen up the best she could.

She proceeded to taking her top off, keeping the sports bra she wore on while she prepared to clean herself of day old sweat. The hand soap and sink were all that was available to clean herself, so she did just that. Ruby took a small handful of hand soap and rubbed it between her palms, then onto her pits. She then soaked her hands in water and rubbed more vigorously. She would continue this for a few minutes until the soap dissipated and she was certain she was clean enough. Her toothbrush and hairbrush were in her luggage, so oral hygiene and keeping her hair styled would have to wait, _but at least I won't step out of the plane smelling like three weeks expired milk._

Once Ruby dried and clothed herself again she proceeded back to her seat. Though she got another look out the window and noticed something; something that was wrong—the plane was descending. Rapidly so. She did not hear any announcement that the plane would be landing. Something had to be wrong.

Ruby decided to put the return to her seat on hold to check in with the captain. Everything definitely felt lighter now, like she could start floating off the floor at a moments notice.

As soon as Ruby stepped into the captains cabin she knew something was wrong. The first officer appeared panicked, holding the wheel to his chest tight. Ruby now knew he was not causing the plane to descend. She asked him, "Hey, what's going on?"

"We're out of fuel," said Daniels, much to Ruby's horror, "I turned the fuel flow valves back on but I think there's a problem with the injection system."

"Oh my god…" Ruby could not believe it, the worst thing that could ever happen on this flight had become reality. "Does the captain know?" she then asked.

"Captain Damein is sending an emergency broadcast now, but we're going down—he told me to hold this wheel back tight so we land belly first."

Was that supposed to be comforting to Ruby? No, it was not. If it was not for the plane already going down, Ruby's stomach ready to hurl out what she had. Then something occurred to her. "Why weren't the passengers warned about this?"

Daniels gave no answer, clearly the the thought flew over his head...but now was better than never, so he turned on the public announcement system and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is First Officer Daniels and you need to listen very carefully—we are going down, I repeat, we are going down…" Now that the announcement was made public, Ruby made her way back to Yang's seat.

"Please remain in your seats, strap yourselves in and if need be hold onto something or someone…"

Ruby found Yang's seat, she was already wide awake and appeared worried sick. She yanked Ruby down into the seat with her and put her seatbelt on, then hugging her tightly. Everyone else seemed in complete panic, like the fall of Rome and everyone was looking for a way out. Ruby and Yang remained in their seats as the chaos unfolded.

"Everyone, please remain calm."

* * *

Daniels finished his announcement and continued trying to keep the plane flying straight. So far the plane was still flying somewhat horizontally, at least it was not going down rapidly...but the fact still remained that the plane was losing speed.

Damein had finally returned to the cabin, though his face was riddled with fear and worry. "I sent the emergency broadcast, but no one is answering."

"Was it on the emergency frequency?" Daniels asked.

"Of course it was," Damein responded, partially insulted...but now was no time for his personal feelings. He looked ahead to see where they were. The plane was down low enough for the sea to be visible. He looked around for some place that was close by, he knew the Pacific Ocean was so massive, and the south half of it was full of islands that could be used for shelter, he just had to find one. "There."

Daniels looked where Damein pointed. There was an island just on the horizon—it could be hundreds miles away...but with the plane going down and nowhere else to go there were not very many options to weigh.

The island was to the right, appeared small with a pair of mountains, it did not appear inhabited—it was not the most ideal place to land, but what choice did either of the pilots have? Daniels let the wheel fall by a little bit, just enough to lower the plane so it would land near the island.

"We're just gliding now," said Damein, "keep the wheel like that—keep us level on our way do-"

The whole plane shook violently as something else happened.

* * *

Right now Ruby and Yang were wishing they had not chosen seats so close to the windows. The sisters watched in horror as they witnessed both of the right wing turbines catch fire. Yang held Ruby even tighter, Ruby returned the hug with near equal care. They knew there was little chance of the plane staying in the air now. They truly going down.

With the right turbines gone the plane began to fall faster, if it were not for their seatbelts Yang and Ruby might begin to float out of their seats. The plane was still level enough to keep that from happening, Ruby figured one of the pilots might be letting the plane descend.

"Ruby, if we don't make it out of this…" said Yang, "I want you to know that I love you." She then started to cry. "I love you."

Ruby could not speak. She was speechless. She wanted to say something so bad...but she could not bring herself to say a word. She feared that in the next moment her life would end, Yang's life would end, probably a handful of people's lives would end—and they probably would never be found. At least not until ten years or twenty past and all was said and done. Forgotten, and those she loved would have moved on.

But she had to say something. She had to. She needed to force the thought into words and speak them. Ruby had to push her fear aside and say the words, something so just in case they were the last words Yang would hear.

"I love you too."


	2. Chapter 2: All Who's Left

" _Stay with me Ruby…"_ a panicked voice echoed, " _I got you, just stay with me…"_

All was hazy, dark and bewildered. Not but dim flickers of light as silver eyes struggled to open, unconsciously looking around to gather what had happened.

Helpless and weak, Ruby felt herself being pulled by someone. She struggled to breathe as ocean water splashed over her face; that and the weight of the bag that sat on her chest as she was dragged ashore.

" _Ruby?"_ the voice rang again, heard like it was miles away, like an echo traveling down and bouncing off the walls—heard, but incoherent. The feeling of a hand slapped light across her face, pain registered and her body attempted to bring itself back to wakefulness. Ruby shook her head, and as she came to she was face to face with a pair of worried and caring lavender eyes. "Ruby?" she asked once again, now more clearly.

" _Y-Yang…,"_ Ruby moaned, a sharp pain in her chest made it hard to speak, or even breathe for that matter, " _what happened?"_ But, by the look on Yang's face, Ruby knew all too well—and all she had to do was look back past Yang to see the roaring glow of flames rising from the water. Even while soaked in the freezing cold water, she could feel the heat pound against her face. Like embers of burning wood, the sounds of burning fuel erupted from the wrecked fuselage of the plane...but even the sounds of crackling seats and luggage couldn't compare to the yells and screams of the lives trapped inside. The sight of seeing all the passengers pounding against the windows with arms, hands, whole bodies burning trying to escape this hell they landed in was far too much for Ruby to bare. Yang would once more grow worried as her sister faded out again.

"Ruby _...Ruby?!"_

* * *

Everything was happening so quickly. Everyone was grabbing onto something or someone. Some were making their last prayers for deliverance or trying to find ways to escape where escape itself would most certainly mean demise. Through all of this, Ruby could only remember her sister hugging her as the plane continued to fall.

Ruby could tell the plane was beginning to point down, gravity forced the plane to fight against the Co-pilot who tried to pull up on the wheel. The whole plane began to shake and violent rattles filled the entire hull as hundreds of tons fought against the uncompromising forces of gravity.

Then, the already damaged turbines blew once again, black smoke had been replaced with roaring flames that erupted from within, it wasn't long before the inside of the wing they were attached to started to blow as well. The fuel lines had to be catching fire, and it wouldn't be long before the rest of the plane met the same fate. With the right wing out of commission, those flying on the plane had little choice but to look down as it began to descend into freefall, the threshold of the emergency marked by hundreds of oxygen masks falling from the ceiling—nobody grabbed one, though. They were already too panicked to care.

Ruby and Yang began to feel even lighter as the plane fell. All around they saw people tripping and falling as they were unable to walk in a straight line anymore. Ruby could feel Yang's grip become tighter the longer they fell, she couldn't blame Yang. Had Ruby been the older sister, she would be hugging Yang the same way.

Then the PA came on, it was the Captain. "Everyone, we are going down rapidly—strap yourselves in, it's going to get r-" the system cut itself off before the Captain could finish. That's when Ruby saw smoke coming from the front of the plane.

Time seemed to grind to a screeching halt as soon as the PA system cut of. Ruby knew it was hopeless now. With two engines blown, and the pilots unable to fly the plane, there was an not one thing to look forward to...the crash.

All went black moments after.

* * *

A painful ringing pounded its way through a void of darkness, loud and never ending. Like a wind chime stuck on a single chord for endless hours, white noise that was impossible to escape.

" _Well this is just great…,"_ a voice echoed through the void of darkness, whoever this belonged to, they were not the most pleasant person. " _What the hell are we supposed to do now?"_

" _Shut up, for one…,"_ another voice said, this one mildly upset and seemed more calm.

Ruby tried opening her eyes again. She laid facing the starlit sky, the bleeding edge of sun just barely painting the sky purple. She looked for whom the voices belonged to—they had been the girl named Weiss and her sister. They both appeared ready to eat out each other's throats.

"You first, _bitch_ ," Weiss hissed. This drew and angry glare from Yang.

"Excuse me?" said Yang as she shoved Weiss hard enough to send her falling to the sand, "I just saved your ass and you're calling _me_ the bitch!" Weiss looked up at her like she wanted to say something, but she kept her mouth shut. Yang huffed and said, "That's what I thought."

Ruby turned to look at another section of the beach. Blake came crawling from the water, bag in hand and appeared just as distraught as Weiss and Yang—if not more. She clutched the bag tightly as she crawled on her knees, a trail of red stained the sand behind her too. Blood, and a lot from the looks of it. Ruby had to figure she might've been hurt during the crash, as did anyone else who might've survived. Yang also noticed Blake's apparent injury, so she turned away from Weiss and walked over to the bleeding girl.

Yang looked Blake's leg over, by now she was wishing she'd paid more attention to what she learned during a field trip she had to a hospital. A long piece of metal stuck itself in Blake's thigh, and a steady stream of blood trickled down. Yang has no idea what to do, and she was terrified that if she did anything it would make the bleeding worse.

"Okay...um…," Yang began, though she couldn't quite put what she wanted to say into words. She touched the piece of metal and Blake recoiled her leg.

" _Agh~_ don't- don't do that...it hurts too much," said Blake, trying to clutch her leg, but she too ended up only making the pain worse.

"Well, it's not coming out by itself," said Yang as she looked Blake in the eyes, "so if you have any better ideas, please tell me now—'cus what I have in mind probably won't be any better."

Blake considered this, and she realized she had no idea what to do either—and frankly, she was scared of what Yang meant by 'what I have in mind'. She took a shuddering breath after exhausting what little options she had, and said to Yang, "Do what you can."

Those words couldn't be any colder, and it horrified Yang that Blake was willing to blindly trust in what she was going to do. She too started taking deep, sharp breaths as she mentally prepared herself for the worst...but she was more worried about her own stomach being prepared. But no, she had to hold herself together no matter what happened, which was easier said than done. This much Yang said in two simple words: "Oh shit…"

Before Yang did anything, she placed her palm on Blake's shoulder and said to her, "Keep your eyes on mine—and try not to move." It took a moment for Blake to register what she meant, and then she got the picture once Yang hovered her free hand over the piece of metal. She said nothing, letting a simple but very well read nod be her only answer for Yang to continue with her plan. _Here goes nothing._

Taking a few more breaths, and praying to God she doesn't screw up, Yang tore open the hole in Blake's jeans a couple inches wider so she could see just how big the piece of metal was—and it was fairly large, roughly...well, it was a long piece of metal, and it was embedded pretty deep into her leg. Once again, Yang looked into Blake's eyes as she grabbed the piece of metal. Blake winced again, but this time was less irritated than before—until Yang pulled.

" _AAAAGH!"_

"Keep your eyes on me," Yang said again, not slowing down a single bit. Honestly, she wanted to scream too, seeing the stream of red go down her hand as she continued to pull at the shrapnel. It wasn't before long that the piece finally came out. Yang looked at it and found it had to be at least two inches deep. "Okay, I'm gonna try to stop the bleeding—keep your hands here, I think…," said Yang to Blake, placing Blake's hands over the wound and clenching her fingers tight. Yang had heard that pressure was supposed to be applied to slow down and stop the bleeding, but all the blood running through Blake's fingers told Yang that this kind of injury needed more intense care—practices and materials she couldn't provide, so she did the next thing that came to mind and tore off a long and wide piece of her own T-shirt and wrapped it around Blake's leg, just tight enough to at least slow down the bleeding. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it was better than nothing...at least for now.

Ruby had watched her sister that entire time, she knew this was how Yang acted after something horrible happens; bending over backwards to help however she can—like a certain switch just flipped and so did she. It reminded Ruby a lot of the times she and Yang would get into a situation where either they were hurt; got in trouble for something; maybe even just preparing for something...whatever it was, Yang would be the one to take it upon herself, and that made her a very good sister to have.

After Yang finished dealing with Blake she returned to Ruby. Ruby didn't notice at first, but Yang too had a cut, a long gash on her forehead—probably cut it on something while they were escaping the plane. Yang has figured out what Ruby was looking at and said to her, "I'm fine, Ruby—right now I'm just wishing I walked away with a bruise like you did." Yang smiled as she said that, and now that she mentioned it, Ruby did feel a slight pain on her head; it hurt when she actually reached up to touch it. Then Yang asked her, "Think you can sit up?" Ruby answered her with a gentle nod.

Even sitting up felt painful, Ruby felt like her entire body had been hit with a hammer repeatedly, every muscle numb and begging her to lay back down and rest; she did no such thing, though. As she sat up she came to see the site of the plane crash more clearly—it had hit a sandbar just a quarter mile away from the beach she and Yang laid on now; the fires have quelled only by a small fraction, for there was still some fuel and other flammable materials inside. While it appeared so distant, Ruby felt she had been standing directly in front of it only mere steps away.

Yang could see her pain, so she sat beside Ruby and watched the burning plane with her. For the next countless number of minutes—which felt like an eternity—the sisters looked to the bleeding edge of the horizon as the sun rose over...well, wherever in the Pacific Ocean they were. Both of them had countless questions and nearly infinite ways of asking them, and they knew no single answer would be good enough to satisfy either of them.

Just for the sake of it, Ruby asked Yang, "How did this happen?" She knew it was a pointless question, but what else was she supposed to ask? Of the entire list of questions she would ask, this was the only one she could bring herself to say?

"I don't know," said Yang; that was all she said, and Ruby couldn't blame her.

* * *

Much further down on another section of the beach, a girl with bright red hair crawled out of the water. She had been tired after fighting the currents trying to get to safety, so she laid facing the sky for a moment to rest. Like Ruby and Yang, she too had a list of questions; unlike them, no one was there to answer them.

...Or so she thought.

" _Help!"_

The girl sat up to find where the distressed voice was coming from, if there was someone from the plane who survived they were probably in no condition to be swimming to shore. As she scanned the water around the crash site she caught a glimpse of a blonde boy, and he was struggling to keep his head above water.

The girl didn't take a moment to think, there wasn't time, if he got caught in an undertow then he would be as good as dead. "Hold on! I'm coming!" she yelled back, and the soonest moment after, she ran back into the water and swam out to the boy.

Once she was out into open waters it was all fair game for nature to do as it would, and the girl had to fight with every inch of it as she cut through the waters with impressive speed, but she was also fighting her own body as she was still worn out from the first swim. Thoughts of turning back had begun to cross her mind, she wasn't to far out.

No, she had to fight the urge to turn back, she had to push on even if her lungs burst. This was the feeling she was taught to expect, and that all she had to do was keep going. Besides, a life was on the line, and she wasn't about to let fatigue dictate what she could and could not do. So she swam; she swam, and she did not let her fleeting strength stop her from doing what she had to do. With each stroke her arms cut into the water; with each kick she pushed herself along; with each breath she took, she gave her body strength to keep going—and that's just what she did.

The blonde had struggled to keep himself from being pulled into the currents. More than once he had gone under; more than once he had choked on ocean water as he fought for air. He would find a foothold off a broken piece of the plane to push against whenever he did get pulled under, but he was beginning to feel his body give into tiredness and struggled to find the strength in his legs to keep pushing. He tried to push himself forward, but only little by little—and simply no ground could be covered in his endeavor to live.

Soon his yells for help gave way to tired lungs, both from his fruitless kicking and his screams. His kicks became less pronounced; his breaths grew shorter; he began to feel like all of his systems meant to keep him alive were shutting down; giving up the fight-or-flight instinct in favor of what his body deemed a well deserved rest. It was, however, against his own wishes—and he didn't want to go under, but nature had other plans.

One more wave slammed into him—and just like that, he was finally swept under. The blonde lost his footing, his strength, and soon he would lose his last breath of air he took before being taken by the sea. Then he felt the current take him and felt almost certain that this would be the end of his life—dying a suffocating death in the cold blue of the ocean, never to be seen again if the forces at sea had their way. _Ironic,_ he thought, _I barely existed in life—now nobody will ever know if I died._ He wished this wasn't as true as he believed it was; that even the forces of nature simply felt the need to push him down into the depths to be drowned, sucked away, and never to be seen again. As he felt himself being dragged down all he could see was his vision fading into a blue blur. He found some strength to turn himself, but that was all his tired legs would allow, and he wished he'd turned the other way—now he was looking at a handful of other passengers who might've met the same fate he would. As if it were some cruel joke, at least he wouldn't have died alone.

With those last, depressing thoughts in mind, and when all his hope had lost its grip on his soul, he let the small smidgen of air he had left escape his lungs; he had unburdened himself from the grasp of air that he knew would kill him if he held it too long, and so he let it go—and he let his body fall further into the current, uninhibited by his buoyancy. He shut his eyes, and submitted himself to being taken wherever he would go after this life.

In the short life he had, he never thought he'd find peace after something so tragic. Acceptance of something that everyone both feared as much as they respected it. The tranquil feeling of numbness that enshrouded his body felt better than any bed he could have ever slept in, like sleeping in a cloud. Where maybe half of the passengers on the plane had died violent or horrible deaths, he thought maybe, just maybe, his would end in peace. He never felt the hand that reached down to grab his wrist.

* * *

Never, in her life, had she swam with such determination. By sheer force of will she thought she had broken some kind of record of hers, but today would've been the first time one of those records included saving a life...well, not quite yet. There was still more she needed to do.

She knew how to deal with people who are about to drown, though this was the first time she actually had to use what she was taught—then again, this morning had been a whole list for firsts; why not add another one to it? But that's besides the point, she knew what to do, and she was going to do it.

First, she turned his head, the blonde had been submerged long enough to have let some water into his system, she had to get it out before she could continue any further. Thankfully, she did see water flow out of his mouth, that was a good sign. With most of the water out of his system she took his wrist and checked for a pulse; it was difficult to gauge, but if she could feel anything she needed to so she could better understand what she had to do. When she found there had been no pulse she then checked if he was breathing—he wasn't. She knew it was time to apply chest compressions. She began pressing the heel of her palm against his sternum, enough to get his heart pumping, not enough to break a rib, so far she thought she was doing everything right.

But he still wasn't breathing. "Come on, don't die on me…" she said, still maintaining a steady pace of compressions. "Twenty-eight... twenty-nine...thirty," Once she hit the 'magic number' her coach taught her about, she tilted the blondes head back; pinched his nose closed and preformed mouth-to-mouth, two breaths of air before she returned to another thirty chest compressions. Then, before she made it to five, the blonde finally came back to consciousness.

"Wha- wha-...," he turned and coughed up the remaining water out of his throat, once she caught his breath he asked, "what happened?"

Once the girl found relief that someone didn't die in her arms, she fell from her knees and sat down on the sand, feeling totally spent and in need of a breath herself. She was so tired, she could barely even speak after the adrenaline that was fueling her before had subsided. Once she had some semblance of strength back, she finally replied to him. "You needed help, so I...uh...I helped," she said to him, and it was just now that she realized this was the same passenger that sat next to her on the plane.

The blonde didn't quite know how to respond to that—either the fact that a girl just rescued him, or why she sounded so awkward in saying she rescued him, but he figured the latter was just her being tired after carrying him back to shore; he couldn't blame her. "Well, thank you—really, you saved my life," he said, and tried to say with the utmost sincerity he could offer.

The girl said nothing more than that of an unspoken "you're welcome" given in the form of a solemn nod. There was something in this girl's emerald green eyes that was hard for him to read, the way she looked at him was unlike any way others have given him before. He decided to see if she would answer one question:

"My name's Jaune," he said to her. "What's your name?" He's asked this question many times, and each of those times the answer they would give was a laugh and a name he knew was a lie. However, there would be no point for this girl to do either of those things. Why would she? There would be no benefit of any sort that would be of importance to her if she lied.

To Jaunes surprise, the girl gave him an earnest and...a somewhat proud glance, not quite proud like she was happy she saved him, but rather something else he did not immediately catch. Before he could read too much into it she finally answered with a voice of matching sincerity to the look in her eyes. "Pyrrha—my name is Pyrrha," she told him. To Jaune, her voice as soothing as an angel; an angel with gorgeous red hair and bright eyes that were impossible not to look at. He actually had to remind himself that she wasn't an angel sent to guard d his life from the harmful elements, but quite simply a girl who saw he was in danger and did what any good person would do. But beyond that, there was something in her voice Jaune found that was truly special—and that was the fact that Jaune knew she was not lying about her name. Pyrrha looked past Jaune, and for the first time in the single hour she's been on the beach she saw more survivors from the crash. She told Jaune, "Let's go to them." Jaune nodded to her, giving no argument, and they both got up to join the others.

* * *

Much of the fires from the plane had subsided, thanks to the constant pounding of the waves quenching them. Seagulls have begun singing their carefree morning songs as they flew overhead, flying high in the sky; proud that they did not have to remain tethered to the surface of the Earth. How lucky they were, the seagulls, to be able to fly and be so completely benevolent of what was happening below. How far man has come to achieve what was naturally granted to birds, the ability to fly and the freedom that came with it. Stories like those of Icarus and Daedalus, the makings of Leonardo da Vinci such as his Aerial Screw and his even more ambitious Flying Machine, all the way to the Wright Brothers first successful airplane; for all of man's desires to rise into the heavens and travel freely from one place to another was one of the many passions of those ambitious enough to step up and make their mark. But even with all the greatest feats man has achieved over several millennia, there was still that one basic fact that man also suffered one hideous flaw above all else: hubris. A sometimes inescapable need to show that they can be greater than that which they are—and so, like Icarus on his wax-built wings had flown too close to the sun, and met his untimely demise. Of all the many minds that had the power to create, there was one thing they could all agree on; that birds may be the only ones truly free. While those who survived the plane crash did not quite meet the same fate as Icarus, there was the fact that they would not be here if the Captain were more careful.

"I bet they like it up there," said Yang. "Damn birds." Ruby couldn't help but laugh along with her.

"Yeah," Ruby started, "wish we had wings." It was a terrible joke, one might even give an exaggerated scoff just out of spite, but the sisters laughed anyway. What they felt they needed right now was a laugh of some kind. Weiss has overheard their laughs, and couldn't help but approach them as they sat.

Weiss asked Ruby, "You really think this is funny?" Then, out of nowhere, she forced Ruby up onto her feet and practically yelled at her. "What the hell do you think this is? We are stranded on an island, our plane is destroyed—and you're laughing at birds?"

Then Yang stood up. "Let her go!" She grabbed Weiss's wrist and used her other hand to pry her fingers off of Ruby's arm. Once she peeled Weiss off, Yang picked dragged Weiss by the arm away from Ruby and threw her on the ground again. "You touch my sister again, you'll be thrown back in the water—got it?" Yang knew Weiss wouldn't answer, her point was clear already, but that didn't stop Weiss from getting back up and walking away from them. "Hmmp."

"Thanks, Yang," said Ruby. She looked the other direction and noticed two more survivors approach; a girl and a boy, and both were familiar—especially the blonde with a cut on his head. Ruby stood up, feeling a little dizzy in doing so, and asked them, "You got out too, huh?"

Pyrrha nodded. "Yes…," she said, though her tone was somewhat blank, "I think we're the only ones who made it out alive." That sent a cold shiver down Ruby's spine. Then she told her, "My name's Pyrrha, this is Jaune."

"Ruby, and the one with the golden hair is my sister, Yang," said Ruby. She wished these introductions could be made under better circumstances, but it couldn't be helped.

Ruby took to explaining to the other two survivors what had happened. There wasn't much to tell on Ruby's part on account of her fading out half the time since she was dragged ashore—only that Blake hs been wounded and Weiss was very hostile. Pyrrha, on the other hand, had lots to tell, and Ruby felt reassured knowing they had someone who knew some forms of first aid.

"I can check on Blake," said Pyrrha. "I'm glad Yang was able to take care of the worst of it." With that, she went straight to Blake to do her work.

Jaune remained with Ruby and Yang as they sat back down on the sand. He'd noticed the bag Ruby kept next to her, a bright red bag with some very familiar lining that he's seen somewhere. "It's that one of those waterproof backpacks?" he asked Ruby. But Yang answered in her place.

"I got that bag for Ruby's sixteenth birthday," she said. "She's never gone anywhere without it...guess that includes this place."

The mention of the bag reminded Ruby of something; it was contrived, and kind of ridiculous, but she unzipped the main compartment of the bag and took out her journal. Looking at it now, she was happy she put it into her backpack; had it been put in any other bag, the journal would've been ruined—a wasted gift from her sister. In some weird way she was happy the journal made it out of the fires and water; she was thankful to God that the journal made it out with her. Ruby opened the journal and slid the pen out of the spine. Writing wasn't the first thing that came to mind, and if she had to be honest she didn't have the first idea what to write. She couldn't even put into words how to describe how she felt about everything that's happened in the past hour. Jaune had seen Ruby struggling to figure out what to write, she was twiddling the pen in her fingers.

"Here's a trick I use sometimes: breath, and focus on one thing," Jaune said to Ruby.

Ruby nodded. The trick was simple enough, two easy steps. That was all, so she closed her eyes, and breathed. One at a time things were pulling together, though the images were slow and incoherent, but the message was all the same. She wrote:

 _June 6th, 2018_

 _So...we didn't make it to Fiji—neither did the plane, actually. It looks like only six of us made it out. The rest...well, I'd rather try not to think about it. It all happened so fast, like a movie that had endless scenes and too many cuts in between—it was all so maddeningly confused and horrifying. Yang seems to be taking it well, all things considered, but I'm worried about how she and Weiss will get along; it looks like they'll be butting heads a lot for the foreseeable future—I don't know. As for myself, I guess I'll just have to wait until tonight to really see how I feel about today._

 _For now, though, all I have to say is this: I'm not dead, Yang's not dead, and hopefully nobody else dies. I've already seen enough death for one day—and it all happened in a matter of minutes._


	3. Chapter 3: First Night on the Island

Mid-Afternoon had come by on the island. Strong winds blew in from the west, carrying with it sprinkles of water from the ocean, cooling off the outermost sections of the coastline of the island. Beating through was the afternoon sun, bathing the beach in it's terrific light as it traveled from east to west. All would be typical for the island, had there not been a wrecked airplane just off the coast...and a group of kids squabbling about themselves as they adjusted to their new environment.

"Jaune, what are you doing?" Yang spouted. "Those aren't small enough for a fire!" She had been twisting a stick against a larger one that she split in half, though the larger piece of wood was rotten, and she had nothing to split any fresher wood, so she put everything she had into pressing hard and twisting a stick onto a piece of wood that she thought may never produce a worthwhile spark.

"We don't have anything smaller!" Jaune barked. "All we got are are bunch of rotten wood, green vines that'll smoke like hell, and sand—loads, and loads of sand!"

Yang growled, but not at him, or herself. She growled at the very prospect of which were the circumstances they were all in.

Ruby had volunteered to help Pyrrha take care of Blake. She was, for the most part, alright, but she couldn't do very much in the way of performing tasks that required her to stand. Pyrrha had done well to clean Blakes leg, and wrap up the wound neater and tighter, but she told Ruby to keep an eye on her just in case. But that didn't stop Ruby from looking about the spot where the group made camp, and she would occasionally look over to see Weiss pacing back and forth, spouting off all manner of anger she had after the plane crashed. Ruby couldn't help but feel sorry for her, that she couldn't find some semblance of peace. But who was she to judge—weren't they all angry about what happened, and just showing it in different ways?

There wasn't much for the group to do at the moment, other than to perform the tasks of the here-and-now. It was tedious, to say the least, and, quite frankly, all any of them wanted to do was to sit down and rest. It would be so easy just to sit down, and do nothing, but that in itself meant they would be sacrificing what was now very precious time. So Yang, Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ruby did their tasks. Weiss had yet to actually do anything to make herself useful, besides wasting breath about a matter that was now out of her control.

Then, Weiss kicked a rock, and it careened into the air and struck Ruby's shoulder, causing her to gasp in pain. "Hey, watch it!" When Weiss didn't respond, choosing to ignore her, Ruby stood up, and walked up to her. She said to Weiss, "Look, I get it, you're angry, but aren't we all?" But Weiss just ignored her, and continued on her little spree like a petulant child. Ruby had to grab her by the shoulder and force her to listen. "You want to be mad, that's perfectly fine, but at least do something besides acting like a toddler."

" _Like what?_ " asked Weiss. "As far as we're all concerned, your sister and that guy," she pointed to Jaune, "are doing something; Pyrrha is tending to this girl's wound," then she pointed to Blake, "so, really, that means neither of us are doing anything—did I leave anything out?"

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP!?" Yang yelled, throwing her piece of wood to side as she got up to approach the two. She glared at Weiss, and said to her, "You need something to do? Go along the coastline and see if you can find something we can eat…" then she turned to Ruby, "and you can go with her."

"Wha- why me?"

"Because Pyrrha is taking care of Blake, and besides, you're the only one here whos taken courses on what's good and what's bad."

"That was an Intro-to-Medicine class, Yang, not Survival 101," said Ruby.

"What about in Scouts?" said Yang. "Remember that time you and that one girl got lost for a couple days?"

"You had to recuse us, remember?" Ruby fired back, remembering that particular point well. "We didn't actually do anything but stay where we were."

"Oh...yeah…" and that's where Yang knew she was beaten, but she wouldn't show it. "Just go with Weiss and see what you can find, please?" And before Ruby could say anything else, Yang leaned close to her ear and whispered to her, " _You'll be doing us a favor getting her away from us."_ She motioned her eyes towards Weiss.

"Ugh, fine, but I'll figure something out for you to do for me in return," said Ruby, and then, she said to Weiss, "Come on, let's see what we can find." She lightly pushed Weiss, but then she was met with a harder shove back from her.

"Don't. Touch. Me. Ever," she said. Ruby threw her hands up at that, and then they went on with the task they've been given.

Yang returned to her task of trying to light a fire, but just as she was unable to before, she couldn't do it now. Frustrated, Yang three down the pieces of wood again and said, "You know, I could really go for a lighter right about now."

"What are the chances of people brining one?" Jaune asked. "The FDA wouldn't allow it anyway, would they?"

Then Pyrrha said, "No, I think that's just tobacco and e-cigarettes—lighters are just fine as long as you keep them on your person."

That drew a surprised look from Yang, and she said, "Great swimmer, CPR, medical practice, _and_ FDA regulation knowledge—is there anything you can't do?" She tried to make it sound like a friendly joke.

But Pyrrha shook her head at the last one, "I said 'I think'. Besides, if anyone _was_ carrying a lighter, it would be stuck on the plane with them—and probably burnt."

"Oh…" was all Yang said, knowing Pyrrha was probably right.

* * *

The wind had died down some, no longer feeding the cool ocean breeze onto the beach, only allowing to Sun's heat to hammer the sand. Seagulls flew about just off the shoreline, dive-bombing into the water and catching their afternoon lunch of fish.

The island wasn't entirely beaches all the way around like Ruby and Weiss thought, in fact, there was a large inlet surrounded by rock formations. It seemed harmless enough. Water just crept in with each wave of water that came in, and some of it got trapped behind the rock. Sadly, upon further inspection, there were no edible things to be seen.

Neither of the girls said a word as they went to investigate the inlet, being careful of the rocks so they wouldn't slip and fall—and Weiss very nearly did fall after she made a bad step and a loose rock fell from under her foot, also breaking off part of the heel on her high-heels.

" _You_ have _got_ to be KIDDING ME!" Weiss began to yell as she knelt down to pick up the piece of her heel. She paused for breath, and said, "Could this day get any worse?"

"You could starve to death…" Ruby suggested, trying to make a joke. But Weiss clearly wasn't in a joking mood, and so she glared at her with such intensity she would burn Ruby if she could. But then, as Ruby looked down, she was amazed by a sight that felt like she had won the lottery, it seemed Weiss' misfortune had become the groups good fortune; a whole school of crab had resided under the rock (there was probably an opening for them to crawl into). Ruby just blankly stared at Weiss, who herself was confounded to say the least, and said, "Or...maybe not."

By both of the girls best count, there were at least five crabs that appeared large enough to eat; the remaining masses of crab weren't even that much larger than either of the girls thumbs: babies.

Ruby crouched down, absolutely in awe with what she was seeing; not the fact that they've pretty much stricken gold, food-wise, but that this was the first time she's ever seen so many little crabs in one place—she felt like a child in the children's section of the Aquarium, where kids were allowed to reach in and pet the creatures in the tank.

...And she actually did start to pet one of the crabs, and she would laugh when some of the other crabs grabbed her fingers with their claws, for they were too small to hurt, it was actually kind of cute.

Weiss, on the other hand, was not as amused, as all she cared about was the fact that they found what they came for: food, and right now she was looking at the motherload. She reached in and grabbed one crab, then another, and another—and on the forth one, Ruby slapped her hand, forcing Weiss to drop the crab.

"Don't take them all," Ruby whined, "any one of these could be the others parents."

Weiss raised her brow, and said, "You can't be serious." But by the look on Ruby's face, she _was_ serious. Then she said, more annoyedly, "There's enough crab here to feed all of us."

While this was true, Ruby didn't agree with taking all of them, and so she told Weiss, "If we take all of them, the babies won't be safe."

"You really think they're safe right now?" said Weiss in a very point-of-fact manner, referring to Ruby and herself. But she had to admit, the idea of a crab being a parental figure was kind of unheard of to her, and actually kind of enticing to entertain, so she said to Ruby, "If you're so invested in this, how about we take two, and leave the rest?"

Ruby had to give that some thought; she still didn't like the idea, but what choice did they have. Then she had a suggestion for Weiss. "Check underneath the adult ones, and see which ones are male and female."

Weiss groaned after hearing that, and said, "What makes you think I'd know how to tell?" To her surprise (or lack thereof) Ruby responded with a broad shrug, showing she didn't know how to tell either.

And Ruby said as much, "I just remember someone saying we should check underneath them—I don't know what to look for, though."

Weiss rolled her eyes, already beginning to grow tired of being in Ruby's company. So, to appease her, Weiss took the five crabs and nestled them all on their backs in the sand, just enough so they couldn't escape while the two looked them over, but, for the life of her, she didn't know the first thing there was to know, nor care, about identifying a male or female crab. As far as she could tell, three of the crabs had long and narrow sections of shell between two other plates, and the other two had large single plates like that of a shovel blade—but it still didn't tell her which ones were the right ones to take.

Then, it came to her, and she almost blushed as she said, "Think these are the males?" She pointed at the crabs with the narrow sections of shell; more of a wild guess that was helped along with some latent memory from health class.

"You're guess is as good as mine," said Ruby.

"Then these are the lucky winners," Weiss said, taking two of the assumed-male crabs while Ruby released the other three into the water.

Satisfied with their find, the girls made the half hour trek back to the group. Beads of sweat had already begun to form on their brows and under their clothes (mostly Weiss, because she was wearing layers). Weiss had grown tired of walking on a broken shoe, so she took them off and walked the sands barefoot, the sun-burnt sand searing her feet.

"You can wear mine if you want…" Ruby offered.

"No thanks."

* * *

The sun's rays crept their way through the palm tree branches, blinding a pair of amber eyes that looked up to something that was hard for them to see. It wasn't the actual light she was looking at; it was someone with bright red hair hanging from the top of a palm tree.

"That's it, Pyrrha," Yang called up, "are there any yellow ones up there?"

"Yes, three," Pyrrha called back.

It was discovered that coconuts were hidden above the groups heads in the trees, exactly what they needed right now. The problem was that they were nearly seventy feet above the ground, and Blake was the only one with experience climbing trees and rocks...well, at least she _was,_ then Pyrrha volunteered herself to take the task of scaling the tree herself. Yang had volunteered at first, but Pyrrha insisted she felt more comfortable if both she and Jaune were there to catch her should she fall. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet.

Once Pyrrha was high enough to reach the coconuts, she wrapped her legs around the tree trunk, like a boa snake wrapped around its freshly caught prey, and began to harvest the coconuts that would yield the most to eat and drink. It was difficult to begin twisting the first one off at first, but once is was loose Pyrrha began twisting it more and more until it would break off its stem. Then she did the same for the second one, and then for the third. She kept the three coconuts she broke off nestled between the tree and her stomach as she looked around for any more, but there were no more to be seen.

Satisfied with the current haul, Pyrrha took one coconut and called down, "Heads up!"

Yang and Jaune braced themselves as Pyrrha dropped the coconuts down to the ground, each landing with hard and loud _thuds_. But not everyone heard the warning,

Ruby and Weiss had returned mere moments after the second coconut landed. Ruby, unaware that one more coconut was falling, was caught completely by surprise when it fell right in front of her grace (it had only grazed the tip of her nose), causing her to fall backward in shock.

"GAH! _oof."_

Pyrrha was looking down, and she saw what happened. "Oh my gosh, sorry!"

"Ruby!" Yang rushed over to Ruby to help her up, using her free hand to toss the coconut to Jaune while she used the other for Ruby to grab onto. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Yang, just scared the hell out of me," said Ruby. Then she saw Pyrrha in the tree, and she asked Yang, "What's she doing up there anyway?"

Yang told her, "We found coconuts; thought we could break a couple open and have something to drink—and maybe eat, if the coconuts have enough meat in them." The mention of something to eat reminded Yang of something else too, and she looked to see what was in Ruby and Weiss' hands. Yang brightened up like a lightbulb at the sight of what they brought back. "Oh sweet, crabs!" she said gleefully.

And Ruby met her with equal excitement. "Yeah, oh, Yang, you should've seen it; there was a whole family of baby crabs in a nest—it was so cute!"

"Was it just like it was at the Aquarium?" Yang asked. After all, how often does anyone see something as adorable as a bunch of baby crabs?!

Ruby smiled. "It was so much better."

Jaune has since finished stacking the coconuts next to Blake, and so he tapped Yang on the shoulder, signaling for her to return to their positions to await Pyrrha as she climbed down the tree.

Going down the tree was simple enough; it was pretty much climbing down the same way she she climbed up in reverse. It should've been easy, but Pyrrha found out that it was quite the opposite. She was fighting the same force that actually made climbing the tree fairly easy: gravity. Her grip supported by own weight going up now was severely weakened going down.

And then, halfway down, Pyrrha's foot slipped, and she fell.

"WOAH!"

Jaune and Yang acted quickly to break her fall, joining hands to form a man-made net with their arms. At the moment of impact, Pyrrha landed in their arms, but the shock caused Yang and Jaune to break their hold on eachother, sending both falling backwards; Yang fell against Ruby, and Jaune fell straight to the ground with Pyrrha in his arms, the rough landing left both Jaune and Pyrrha gasping for air—mostly Jaune, who took the full force of the fallen girl and had the wind knocked out of him.

Once Pyrrha caught her breath, she moaned out a single word, "Sorry…"

But Jaune let the apology go, and asked her, "You alright?"

"Yes," responded Pyrrha, "I am. Thank you for catching me."

"Yeah, anytime," Jaune grunted as he helped her off of him, and got himself on his feet, then helped Pyrrha up.

"Well, that happened," Yang said once everything settled down. "So...anyone know how we're gonna crack these open?" It was an honest question; one that Yang expected should be easy to answer.

And it was, as Blake made a suggestion. "How about that rock over there?" She pointed to a rather sharp looking rock just at the edge of the tree line. "Hit the coconut hard enough against it, they should split open."

Everyone looked to one another, indeed it was fairly simple, and so Yang took the coconuts to the rock, wasting no time in wailing on the rock with the coconut in hand. Within a few swings she managed to create a large enough crack to tear open the shell all the way—and she even tore off the furry outer membrane, figuring she could use that to build a fire.

Now with two halves of a coconut, and both still relatively full of coconut water, Yang went back to the group and offered the halves to Pyrrha and Blake.

"So you can stay hydrated," she told Blake, and to Pyrrha she told her, "You got them down, only fair you got the first drink as well."

But Pyrrha declined the offer. "Thanks, but if it's all the same to you, you and Jaune caught me when I fell—I think it's fair either one of you get the first drink."

"Why does it matter who gets the first one?" Weiss broke in, having heard enough about so trivial as _fairness_ in what was currently a very unfair situation. Then she pointed to the remaining two coconuts, and said, "Break them open, and then we all get a half to drink from."

"Uh...that's not how it works…" Ruby chimed in, drawing a heated glare from Weiss, but Ruby didn't falter as she then said, "not all coconuts have water in them—for all we know there could only be meat inside."

No one else said anything after that. How could any of them argue at that fact? It was only sound logic. And it was sound logic that led Yang to take the other two coconuts and begin smashing them against the rock; Weiss could feel a wave of pride run through her veins as the first of the two yielded water as well, but that wave dissipated just as quickly as it came after Yang broke open the third—it yielded a solid core.

"Told you so," said Ruby, attempting a jab of humor.

But Weiss wouldn't have it, and she said, "So we have to share a couple—so what?"

Once again, nobody else said another word about the coconuts; that debate was finished.

* * *

The coconut water was divided among the six as evenly as possible, and they all got their fill of the meat within. Coconut meat was very nutritious, and so they all agreed that coconut would be a go-to item for cases where they couldn't eat anything else. Tonight, however, was only the end of regular meals that involved steaks and sweet tea; tonight was the start of a whole new diet for them: the survival kind.

Ruby bided her time breaking open the crabs shells, diligently ripping out the meat inside. It was sloppy, and she's had more than one occasion where she almost puked, but she thought there would be enough for everyone. Legs, claws, bodies, she learned watching some survival shows that there is one common rule that should always be followed: waste nothing. And so that's what she did, she didn't let one ounce of meat go to waste—and she used her nails to dig in to harvest as much as possible.

But there was still one problem; there was no fire to cook the meat, and they all agreed that it would be much safer if they ate cooked crab. Lest be safe than sorry when it came to things like salmonella and God knows what other filth that laid within raw shellfish meat. Sunset had begun to roll in, and Yang was still struggling to get a fire going.

"AGH," she threw another piece of wood she found, "stupid son-of-a-bitch!"

"Yang, you've been trying to make a fire all day, give it a rest," said Blake.

"No, I can do this…" Yang argued. She looked around to see if she could find anything she could use, but there was very little to be seen, especially when the sun was beginning to set. She was just about ready to take Blake's advice and get ready to give up.

Then, Yang remembered something, and it was regarding something that belonged to Weiss.

"Hey, Weiss," Yang called to her, "you don't have any more use for that heel, do ya?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Just let me see it."

Weiss waited a moment, weighing Yang's request like it were judgement of guilty versus not guilty on a scale. For one, she already didn't like Yang for a number of reasons, and that was compounded by the fact that she was her least favorite out of the list of three girls she didn't like. And for two, she didn't know why Yang needed the heel, and quite frankly she didn't care to give Yang the satisfaction of being allowed to find out.

But Yang didn't wait, because just after she told Weiss to let her see the heel she crawled over and took it from her (Weiss added 'petulant thief' to her list of dislikes). Weiss wanted to protest, but decided against it, as she's had enough of today to even care anymore.

Yang looked the heel over carefully, and she was pleased to see that Weiss' shoes were the kind that bore screw-on heels—perfect for what she had in mind. She then scoured the area around her for a rock.

"Ha ha~, there we go," Yang said, holding up a large rock with a very rough surface. Now she thought she had the tools she needed. "Jaune, get some sticks and start breaking them—we might just have a fire tonight."

Jaune nodded and did as she asked, appreciating the enthusiasm that broke away from the descent. While he went and gathered the kindling, Yang gathered the shells from the coconuts and took some of the twine off, rolling it into a ball. She then took the heel and rock, and struck the screw-end of the heel against it, creating sparks. She made a flint and steel.

Five tries; five sparks, the coconut twine began to sparkle, and then became a small flame.

"Jaune, hurry up with those sticks," said Yang, but Jaune was way ahead of her. He set the small sticks up against the embering twine, and Yang began to blow at the embers so the sticks would catch. Soon enough, like the stories of neanderthals, they had created fire.

Feeling triumphant in her success over something she'd been trying to accomplish all day, Yang happily said, "Alright, Ruby, get that meat on a skewer—we're having cooked crab tonight!"

* * *

The crab was not quite as spectacular as it would've been in a five star restaurant, but it was filling for those who ate it; that was the most they could ask for...aside from some butter, probably.

All things considered, Ruby was satisfied with the less-than-superb dinner. She reasoned she'd have to get used to not having good food for a long while, however long that may be.

Nightfall had set in on the island, and everyone was making due with sleeping on the ground, maybe lie against a tree or two. The fire continued to burn after it had been loaded with fresh wood.

Everyone else had gone to sleep, but Ruby remained awake. Something was still ebbing at her. A lot had happened today, and it all felt so close together, like it had all been put into a can and crushed under a size twelve boot. Not even the last entry to her journal made this day feel complete.

The journal...what was meant to be a memoir of Ruby's greatest moments immortalized in words formed from the deepest recesses of her mind would now serve partially as a record of her time on this island, God forbid the moment she would run out of pages.

In need of something to get her to want to sleep, Ruby reached for her bag and pulled the journal out. She slid the pen from the spine, and started writing:

 _(Continued…)_

 _So, today was a day; one very eventful day. One moment, I felt like I was going to die; the next, I'm sitting in front of a fire on an island in the middle of the Pacific eating coconuts and crab._

 _It hasn't even been 24 hours, and yet I already miss home; I miss Zwei; I miss dad; I miss my friends. God, I miss everything and it hasn't even been remotely long enough for such a feeling of loss to be appropriate._

 _It's not all bad, though—Yang has pretty much made herself the leader of our little group, and honestly...I think it suits her. After her mom left, and after my mom died, I think she sort of grew up being the parent when dad was out doing his job out of town. Maybe, in her mind, she thinks she's the mother of six kids, and she's trying to keep us all from doing bad things; Weiss most of all._

 _Weiss...I don't get her; she acts like this stuck up b****, but how can I call her that after everything that's happened? But even so, she was like this even before the plane departed. Part of me wants to give her a break, but another wants to dig deeper and really see if I can get through to her somehow._

 _But I'm getting ahead of myself (and I'm running out of page to write on), so I'll say this: today has been a helluva day, and I think I deserve some rest after what I guess amounts to a successful prelude to survival._

 _Alright, this sentence is on the literal last line of the page. Time to go to sleep._


	4. Chapter 4: A Matter of Need

Sounds of soft waves crept from shore. Seagulls chirping and flying about, singing their morning songs as they prowled the skies for a snack from the ocean. Among the sounds was that of a cool breeze that blew in from the south, bringing in the unmistakable smell of salty sea air as the day began to move forward.

Six kids all sat with their backs against a group of palm trees, all sound asleep amd facing a since dead fire which had been reduced to ashes since the night before. They all appeared mildly comfortable, despite being in an obviously uncomfortable position. But none of them wanted to sleep on the ground.

One of the girls of the group would be unfortunate enough to fall over in her sleep, restlessness finally won out after a long night of sleeping in the same position, and so she fell to her side and her head hit the dirt below. Silver eyes slowly fluttered open after the fall.

" _Ugh…"_ Ruby moaned. She rubbed her eyes, and looked around. " _Yep, still on the island…"_

Ruby stood up, and, in doing so, her spine and neck crackled and popped from top to bottom. A crick in her neck would persist, and made the neck popping rather uncomfortable...on top of the list of things that were already uncomfortable about the conditions on the island. She stretched her arms, and her shoulders too popped. It seemed her whole body yearned to fall to pieces, and then be put back together. She let out a deep exhale after her body stiffened.

She ran her fingers through her hair—which had become oily without a proper shower—and found that leaves and sand had gotten stuck in between the strands of her bangs. Annoying, but not too hard to deal with.

Ruby yawned as she stumbled her way to the shore. This wasn't how she pictured her first morning in the tropics of the pacific. She pictured waking up in a bed with silk sheets, the late-morning sun blinding her as she awoke, and a gourmet coffee waiting for her to pick up and drink down to the last drop. But she didn't have that. No. What she had was an aching pain from her tailbone to her neck, and no coffee to drink.

Goosebumps ran all throughout her body as she dipped her toes into the cool water. "Well, here goes nothing," Ruby said as she took off her shirt. She slid her shorts down too, and kicked them to the side. It wasn't like anyone was going to watch her. Besides, she didn't want to get her clothes wet while she washed out her hair.

Ruby waded in the shallows until the water reached about halfway up her shins. Then she knelt down, and reached into the water. With her hands now soaked she reached back up and proceeded to rake out her hair of the dirt. She would've preferred an actual shower to this, if she had to be frank. This made her feel like a Neanderthal discovering basic hygiene. No soap. No shampoo. No brush of any kind, nor rock to scrape off the dead skin on her heels. Just water. Water that came from the ocean, and was salty, and ran with some oil from the plane that sat several meters away.

Something else was in the water as well, and Ruby noticed it as she was washing up. At first glance it looked like a clump of seaweed washing ashore, but, as it came closer, Ruby realized it was a bag, a leather bag with scorch marks all over it. Ruby crawled over to it to see just how salvageable it was. She was skeptical, but it appeared the bag made it out alright, just that the outer skin was seared off and the handle was nothing more than charcoal...which Ruby figured out after it snapped apart. She decided to hurry up and finish washing her hair before returning to shore with what was now her new bounty. How fortunate—and it was only the groups second day.

With the bag in hand, Ruby rushed back to shore and slid her clothes back on. They would be wet and soggy for the foreseeable couple of hours now, but that didn't matter. Something more important than wet clothes just landed at her feet.

Ruby had forgotten to secure the button on her shorts, but she didn't care as she ran back to the spot where the group slept. They nearly came halfway to falling down, but she caught them, holding them up as she called for them to wake up.

" _GUYS!_ Look what I found!" She held up the bag in front of the now stirring group like it were a prize.

Yang was the first to wake up, but Ruby knew it didn't mean that was a good thing. She wasn't sure about the others, but Yang needed something more than coffee to wake up in a stable mood.

" _Ruby...go back to b-...oh...right…"_ Yang said. Like Ruby, she popped her neck; it was noticeably louder than her younger sisters, and she did it for a much longer period of time. Once she was at least half-awake, she asked Ruby, "What is i-..." but she cut herself off after catching sight of the bag. Her eyes widened slowly as she then asked, "Where did you get that?"

"I was washing my hair, and this floated up to me…" she set the bag on the ground, "maybe it's got stuff we could use."

Then Jaune became fully awake, and newly aware of what Ruby brought to them. He asked, "Where did that come from?"

"From the plane, I think..." said Ruby. Then, she shuddered, the feeling of guilt brought her thoughts to wonder about the poor soul who once owned this bag. At the moment, she now thought of this like they were robbing a corpse. A grim thought, but one that made Ruby pull her hand away from the bag in a self imposed shame.

Weiss and Pyrrha had awoken next. The former looked just about as bad ad Yang. The latter, she appeared perfectly fine...if you can call waking up early and on the ground _perfectly fine_.

Pyrrha's opened her mouth to speak, but Weiss was the first to say anything.

"Oh _great_ , so other people's bags are washing ashore now?" She asked. But Ruby knew well enough not to verbally answer her (lest she get a snotty slur back), so she nodded as her answer to Weiss.

Then Pyrrha said, "I think that's mine...actually." Everyone looked at her with shock.

"Really?" Yang asked Pyrrha. "How can you tell? It's almost completely ashes." Not a very accurate observation, as the bag itself was relatively intact, but it was enough for Pyrrha's glance to change from hopeful to skeptical.

And Yang had something of a point. For all Pyrrha knew, this bag could've belonged to anyone. But there was only one way to find out. "Then we should open it," Pyrrha told them. And before any of the others could protest, Pyrrha moved herself to one end of the bag where the zipper was.

Pyrrha tried to keep her hopes in check as she ripped the golden zipper. It was hard at first, because one of the zippers teeth was missing, but once she got it going it was easy to undo. But what was once hopeful anticipation turned to somewhat bitter disappointment. The bag truly wasn't hers. She sighed, and said, "No, it's not mine…"

Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha all started taking out the contents of the bag. Nothing atypical about any of what laid inside, aside from a green and red colored Chinese fan. The rest was regular items usually allowed in carry on luggage; small bottles of shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brush (which everyone mentally reasoned they wouldn't use...germs and all), and a hair brush that looked fairly new. Whatever else was just a spare change of clothes.

Yang shrugged her shoulders. "Well...it's better than nothing…" she said.

"At least we got a fan," Ruby said, holding up the out-of-place trinket. "We could use it to start another fire; fanning air on it?"

Yang nodded, she had to admit that was a clever use for a hand fan. She didn't even think of that at first. The more you know.

* * *

A couple hours of the day have passed since Ruby retrieved the bag. Today, everyone had their tasks: Yang had started another fire (using the fan as a sort of bellows), and now was working on a shelter with the help of Jaune. Pyrrha was tending to Blake's wound. And Ruby and Weiss were out looking for another source of food somewhere else on the island.

Weiss took a pair of sandals that were in the bag. They were not what she would call _great,_ but they would do—she was just glad they matched her outfit.

"I still would've given you mine," said Ruby, "my feet don't get burnt so easily."

"Well good for you…" Weiss snapped, though it wasn't as agitated as she normally would answer. For what it was worth, Ruby found it somewhat refreshing.

They continued walking for a while; much longer than when they came across the spot with the crabs (Ruby wanted to call it the _Crab Crib_ ) _,_ but there wasn't anything to be seen. Nothing at all. Just a long stretch of beach lain with white-ish sand. Neither of the girls seemed to mind the walk, though, it was an easy way to keep their mind off the fact that they were stranded...Ruby found it quite peaceful, she even had a slight smile as they strode along. Weiss...well, she seemed to only have two ways of showing what she thought about things: bitterness, and anger. All things considered, Ruby was willing to take bitterness over anger at any rate.

It was cloudy overhead, the sun's rays had difficulty getting through the clouds which made it much cooler, but that also meant sunscreen was a must, because of an event called the 'broken-cloud effect'. It sounds ridiculous, but Ruby discovered this phenomenon after she stumbled upon an article about the sun's rays—she was really researching how solar power worked for a paper in her physics class. She mentioned this to Weiss earlier, but, much to Ruby's surprise, Weiss didn't care much about it. Of course, Weiss' doubts didn't stop Ruby from putting on some sunscreen she found in the bag...Weiss just wore her unusually large white hat; something Ruby thought would've been lost during the crash. If there was a stronger breeze today, Ruby thought the hat might actually fly away; she couldn't help but giggle at the thought.

"What's so funny?" Weiss asked, unknowing of the inside joke Ruby had with herself. When Ruby didn't answer, Weiss asked again, more firmly, " _What's so funny?"_

But Ruby wasn't intimidated. "Nothing...I just remembered something that happened at school…" A white lie mixed some level of truth, because something did actually happen at her school that Ruby found funny when she thought about it.

And Weiss inadvertently caught on. "And what might _that_ be?" she asked Ruby.

Then, Ruby's face went flushed, even under her sunscreen you could tell she was a shade lighter than before. She kind of wished Weiss didn't pry into it, but, at the same time, she was glad she might've found something to get Weiss talking. Ruby thought that maybe she would try and be like Alice, and jump down the rabbit hole...the rabbit hole might end up being a pile of rocks at the bottom, and Ruby would break her neck falling down into it, but it was worth a shot if it meant she could get maybe a chuckle out of Weiss.

"Me and one of my friends were walking down the hall," Ruby said as she tried to pull together the specifics. "There are these huge pillars that support the roof, right? Well, one day, we come across this guy named Cardin—he was a total prick by the way—and he's checking out my friend, but instead of saying anything, we let him continue to look at her while he walks into the pillar…" Ruby began to laugh once more, and more jovially than before. "You _really_ had to be there—his face was priceless!"

"Sounds like he should've been watching where he was going…" Weiss said. Much to Ruby's dismay, she didn't appear at all phased. Not even a hint of glee in her voice.

But Ruby wasn't finished. "It gets worse. You know the joke about crying over spilt milk, right?" To this, Weiss nodded, and Ruby continued, "Well he started to cry, and, when he tried to run away, guess what was there for him to slip over…: spilt milk." She started laughing again—and, something rather unexpected, so did Weiss.

"Okay," Weiss said. "That's pretty sad...but also funny." She started to giggle a little bit, but she regained her composure moments after.

A sudden alarm went off in Ruby's head when Weiss said that. She had done it. She finally got Weiss to laugh for a change—it was a small laugh, but it was a laugh—and all it took was a story from junior high.

"Alright, I told you something about me; you're turn," said Ruby, trying to make this conversation run long.

But Weiss shook her head, and told her, "Nope, not that easily. Now, come on, we're supposed to be looking for food."

" _Yeah, yeah, yeah,_ whatever you say, _Elsa,"_ Ruby said with a light-hearted chide.

Weiss raised a brow at the jab Ruby used. "Really? You're going to start comparing me to a movie character now?"

"Well...she is an ice queen," Ruby said pointed out with a shrug.

Weiss just rolled her eyes, and told her, "Let it go, Ruby. Let it go…" With that, the two kept walking.

* * *

"Jaune, _no-no-no_ , that needs to go up higher," Yang said to Jaune, who had been struggling with a piece of the strap he'd torn off the bag Ruby found.

"I _can't_ go any higher, Yang. And aren't you shorter than me?" Jaune snapped back. He knew this much was true, because he did in fact stand taller than Yang by a couple inches. Then, he added, "So really, _you're_ supposed to be going higher."

But Yang wouldn't have it. "You really wanna get smart now?" This caused Jaune to shrink.

The two were trying to build what could hardly be considered a shade. Another bag had appeared a couple hours after Ruby and Weiss departed from the spot. But it held nothing of intrinsic value, though, just an inflatable pillow with no pump in sight. The airtight fabric seemed very stretchy, so Yang and Jaune were able to pull it to reach the trees for it to be tied to, the only problem now was getting it up high enough to be adequate by some made-up standard.

Pyrrha had been keeping an eye on Blake for a while. It was really boring when there wasn't anything inherently important besides being there in case anything serious happens. At the very most she would check Blake's forehead for her temperature—a very tedious thing to do because she had absolutely no idea what a fever was supposed to feel like...Pyrrha decided to chalk it up to the oh-so-original: you'll know when it happens. But there was one thing she did know; she checked her watch and she found it was time to clean the wound and change the bandage.

Blake winced by the smallest bit as Pyrrha untied the bandage. Yang's T-shirt did the trick in keeping the wound closed tight enough, and long enough, for it to slow down to a light trickle, but there was still a long way to go. The yellow fabric of the shirt was stained a hideous mix of brown and red, mostly from blood that was already on her leg before the fabric was wrapped up around it, and the thick of it around the spot where the blood came. Thankfully, this wasn't the first time Pyrrha had seen wounds this bad—and she's seen worse ones.

Pyrrha's first thought was to ask Yang for another section of what was left of her shirt, but it was already up to her chest like a crop-too so she figured the last thing Yang would want is to be left without one at all. (Even though Pyrrha could clearly see a sports bra underneath.) She also figured she couldn't use her own shirt, because of the obvious fact that by now all manner of bacteria had built up; it was one thing when it came to thinking fast and stopping the bleeding, but it was another to think about the long term of actually letting the wound heal without any complications.

Then her attention turned to the bag Ruby found. There were clothes in it, ones that hopefully were at the very least clean enough to be used as a bandage, maybe there was something she could find that no one would miss. So she dragged it to her and rifled through it, putting aside a bra, a skirt, a pair of socks (which seriously made Pyrrha question if the owner of this bag wore socks _with_ sandals), and then she found something that she deemed adequate for her purposes: a cotton blouse.

Pyrrha took a breath, and with a quick surge of muscle she tore one of the sleeves off the blouse. She had to be careful not to let the larger portion of it touch the ground, lest the fabric become non-sterile, so she put it back into the bag. With the sleeve in her other hand she prepared to wrap it around Blake's leg, but she needed to clean the wound first.

"Yang, can I have some help with this?" Pyrrha asked, but Yang appeared too preoccupied with Jaune about how he should tie the knot.

"No, look, _this_ goes on top, _that_ goes on bottom."

"You're telling me to do it backwards," Jaune whined, "I never tied a knot this way!"

"It's a wonder you can even tie your own shoes _this_ way…" Yang snapped, flicking her head at the knot Jaune made.

Jaune backed away, hands up in surrender, and told her, "Fine, if it's so bad, you do it."

"How about I do it?" Pyrrha said, knowing if this went on any longer then someone was walking away with a black eye. She got up and walked to the tree Yang stood next to while holding the piece of strap. And just like that, Pyrrha tried a perfect knot. Before Yang could say anything about it, Pyrrha repeated her question to her, "Can you help me clean Blake's wound?"

Yang opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't put thought into words. The rhythm she put herself in was thrown off, and to be frank she found it difficult to switch from leader to caregiver. But she wasn't about to make herself look unable to tend to others needs, so she nodded her head and said, "Yeah, good idea."

The two knelt down at either side of their patient, (Blake might as well have been one,) and Pyrrha said to Yang, "Hold this," handing her the torn-off sleeve. Yang nodded and kept the sleeve in hand while Pyrrha examined the cut.

Right about now Pyrrha was wishing she had more experience in the medical field. She (as well as everyone else, probably) could handle the more basic elements of first aid, but she was drawing a blank on what to do right now. Yang had told her the piece of metal she pulled out was about two inches long, so they were already dealing with a cut that might have needed stitches, but the way the cut had already slowed down bleeding might've suggested it didn't hit anything serious—but looking was one thing, knowing was another.

"I'm just checking, okay?" Pyrrha told Blake. When she nodded, Pyrrha knew she was clear to proceed, but as soon as Pyrrha placed a finger on Blake's leg she recoiled back.

" _AGH…_ " Blake gasped. "That felt worse than before…" she moaned.

Pyrrha reeled her hand back as Blake said that, and she nodded shortly afterwards. "It looks worse to- oh no…" she then realized what she did might've made things even worse. "The wound opened up again."

" _Great…"_ Blake said. There was no question this was on the bottom of the list of things she would want to happen.

Yang took a look at the wound, and she too agreed that this wasn't a good sign—on top of the fact that the wound had to have gotten worse in the time it's been since she'd last seen it. And she didn't know what else to do. She looked to Pyrrha, but the look on her face said it all: she didn't know what to do either. Or did she?

Pyrrha rushed back over to the bag and searched through it, but her faith in the bag holding anything was quickly fleeting. She was looking for a sewing kit, but as she nearly tore the bag apart looking for one, there wasn't one to be found.

"Um...I may be the only outsider here," Jaune started, "but we do have a fire. Couldn't we just do it like they did in the movies?" This drew mixed reactions from the girls, namely Yang, who's eyebrow rose so high it looked about ready to pop off her forehead.

"This isn't the movies, Jaune, if you're saying what I think you're saying-" but she was cut off by Jaune.

"Without anything to stitch it up, staple it up, or bind it, burning it closed is her best option," said Jaune in a very matter-of-fact manner, but even he himself had to admit that his own suggestion was utterly ridiculous, especially his rationalization for it too.

"You're suggesting we cauterize it?" Pyrrha asked, but Jaune didn't answer, for he said enough already. "We don't even have a suitable piece of metal to heat up."

"Then use one of these sticks or something!" Jaune fired back.

Yang had been made totally speechless. She's been giving Jaune a hard time before, but now she was shocked that Jaune would think of something so painful as burning a wound closed. But then she considered what other options they had, and they were few and far between. She looked to Pyrrha, and she could see the scales tilting in her head too, maybe even came to the same result. Then one more voice chimed in.

"Just do it…" Blake flatly said. Her audience looked at her in shock that even she was willing to volunteer to go through something that would very well be excruciatingly painful. And Yang told her as much.

"You know what that means, right?" Yang said to her, and Blake gave her a weak nod. Not exactly what she would call a good answer, but she was in more corners than she was comfortable with and not enough ways to get out of them. With no other options left to look at, she looked up to meet Pyrrha's eye, and while she looked completely opposed to it, she nodded her head in agreement.

Everyone remained silent as Pyrrha picked up a fresh stick from the pile, one that was large-ish and flat, just right for what they needed it for. She hung it over the flames while Yang waited on standby, watching the stick start to glow hot with fresh embers.

"Here, you'll want to bite on this when we get down to it," Pyrrha said to Blake, tossing Yang a smaller piece of wood.

Once the embers were long enough to cover most of the wound, Pyrrha crawled back towards Blake.

"Jaune, Yang, you're both going to hold her down just in case," said Pyrrha. Neither of the blondes argued as they took their positions: Yang held Blake's ankle; Jaune held her shoulders; Pyrrha rest her hand on Blake's pelvis. Now all she had to do was...well, she would rather not think about it. "Here goes nothing."

Pyrrha's arm crept by the shortest of centimeters as she pointed the burning hot tip of the stick at Blakes leg. The four of them all readied themselves for what would probably be the second worst thing that's happened by far.

But Pyrrha stopped just before she could make contact, like some divine force was holding her arm from doing the deed. Her arm began to tremble as she tried to fight her own fear and retain some sense of morality from what in her mind might as well have been torture.

Yang saw Pyrrha's struggle. She's seen that same look in Pyrrha's eyes as so many other people before her did in moments like this. Yang didn't know Pyrrha much by any degree, but she could tell just by the way Pyrrha was looking and holding back that she was a good person who meant well, and that could possibly go as far as avoiding the concept of harming others.

"You don't have to do this, Pyrrha…" Yang told her, knowing she couldn't let Pyrrha go through with it.

Pyrrha gave her no answer, but Yang was right. She couldn't go through with it. She didn't even fight Yang as she took the stick from her grasp, and then motioned for her to switch sides so Yang could take Pyrrha's place.

"Blake…" Yang said, the slightest tremor in her voice as she tried her best to show remorse. "I want you to look me in the eyes, like we did before. Look at me, and don't stop." She said this, and now she was finding herself very much in the exact same place Pyrrha was in—trembling hands and all, maybe worse. But what other choice did they have?

Blake gave a firm nod and did as she was told, locking her eyes with Yangs as she awaited what was to come.

Yang had to force herself to stop trembling, indeed this was her first time doing this (as was everyone else's, probably), but she had to be strong—just like she had to be for Ruby—she had to be the strong one to do what needed to be done. She took a breath and steeled herself, and soon her trembling subsided.

Pyrrha and Jaune held Blake as tight as they could as Yang inched ever closer. But as Yang finally did what Pyrrha couldn't, all Blake could do was clench her jaw and breathe heavily—and even then, it wasn't enough to muffle the most ear splitting sound that could be uttered by any human being. The scream…

" _AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"_


	5. Chapter 5: A New Problem

Two hours. That's how long it took for Ruby and Weiss to find another landmark on the island, two long hours. Silent hours of course, all commentary pretty much came to a grinding halt after Ruby told her high school drama story to Weiss. It was a funny moment, but Weiss appeared intent on maintaining her no-nonsense demeanor, much to Ruby's dismay.

The pair stumbled upon a jumble of large rocks that made a sort of walk-in opening. Ruby went to investigate, but she was stopped when Weiss tugged against her shoulder.

"No, no, _no_ , I do _not_ trust that to stay up," Weiss said.

Ruby rolled her eyes and said, "Its held up this long...really, what are the chances it's gonna fall apart?"

"Considering how many things have _been_ falling as of late," said Weiss, "I'd rather not test fate."

Ruby shrugged out of Weiss' grasp. The suggestion was absurd, and frankly more superstitious than Ruby took someone like Weiss for, of course the rock wasn't going to fall. It hasn't already, so what was to say it would fall now? The answer: no, of course not. Besides, it was a fairly large enclosure—one with a rather deep dip inside—so if there was anything in there, Ruby was intent on finding out for sure. They were after food after all.

Weiss remained back while Ruby strode towards the rocks. Ruby would make her visibly jump in place as she kicked one of the rocks hard enough to let out a small thud. This drew a laugh from Ruby, but Weiss' cold narrowed eyes weren't having it. Weiss told her, "If that falls on you, I won't feel one bit sorry."

" _Yeah, yeah…_ " Ruby quipped. Once she was done having her fun Ruby looked around the small pit. For the most part there were merely some large and small stones strewn about. From the looks of things it was just an empty pit, very unfortunate.

But Ruby wasn't about to give up just yet. She knelt down and started lifting and moving some of the stones out of the way, thinking maybe something was buried under the rocks and sand. She would stop a few moments later after her hands started to ache. Ruby sighed, and with some slight disappointment she said, "Nothing here."

Weiss said nothing and continued to walk down the coastline, Ruby following shortly after.

"It was worth a look…" said Ruby, trying to work through her own disappointment. Unsurprisingly, Weiss kept her silence. Ruby decided not to speak much more either as they walked.

* * *

An hour would pass as the day went on. The clouds overhead grew thick and almost completely blotted out the sun, such a change was marked by the breeze growing ever cooler and slightly harder.

Ruby and Weiss kept walking despite the change of the weather, the latter secured the strap on her hat under her chin so it wouldn't fall off her head. Ruby began to feel much cooler now that the sun's rays were no longer touching her sunblock covered skin—she actually came out with a slight tan, though Ruby wished she were wearing her swimsuit so the tan would be even; another thing of irony that made Ruby envious of Weiss' attire, who would've been burning up in her hat and long sleeves. Ruby looked back, and it appeared to be clear skies back where the rest of the group was, at least it would be for the time being.

A squadron of seagulls flew overhead, maybe hundreds of them. Ruby had to wonder if they were flying away from what appeared to be a storm.

"Where do you think they're going?" Weiss asked.

Ruby shrugged. "Guess they're going where the storm isn't?" A rhetorical question, one that she knew Weiss didn't need to answer.

The breeze kept growing stronger by the smallest of margins. Heat was no longer a concern, and Ruby accentuated this by taking a handful of sand and wiping the sunblock off herself.

"You've got to be kidding me," Weiss snapped, being not very fond of what Ruby was doing. "You're going to give yourself a rash."

"No I'm not…" Ruby moaned, but not because Weiss was wrong. Quite the opposite, actually. She could already see her shoulders turning a light red from her sandpaper-like palms. Weiss' own bewilderment would be further justified once Ruby started rubbing her face off, only to stumble on her own feet and come crashing down face first into the sand. " _Ooof!"_

Weiss rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "You're such a dolt," she told Ruby. "Now come on, I think I see something in the tree line over there," she then said, pointing towards a clearing in the palms that she knew Ruby obviously couldn't see while in her current predicament. _Why was I partnered up with a complete child?_

Of course Ruby stumbled back onto her feet, though her eyes were forced shut. Try as she might, she just couldn't get the sand out of her eyes.

"Come here…" Weiss said as she took Ruby by the shoulder and dragged her towards the water. Ruby tried to fight her, but Weiss had her in a hold that actually became painful if she did try to free herself, so she had little choice but to be forcefully guided and thrown into the water. "Dip your face in, and wipe it off with your shirt—that had to have been the dumbest idea you've ever had."

The first part of Weiss' orders wasn't much of a choice for Ruby, as she plummeted into the water with a soft splash. Now she no longer had to deal with sand in her eyes, but salty seawater instead—and her shirt was now soaking wet thanks to Weiss throwing her into the water.

" _Agh-_ did you _really_ need to do that?" Ruby asked.

"Did _you_ really _have_ to rub yourself with sand to remove sunscreen... _no_ , no you didn't," spouted Weiss. She watched as Ruby once again struggled to her feet, but what she did not expect was for Ruby to slide her shirt off entirely, thankfully she had a bra on. Ruby then proceeded to use the only dry part on the back of her shirt to wipe off her face. It seemed Ruby was just as uncomfortable about it as Weiss was, because as Ruby finished wiping off her face Weiss noticed her cheeks were flushed the slightest bit of pink. _How could she be embarrassed, hasn't she spent time in a girls gym locker before,_ Weiss thought, but that wasn't the only thing she noticed; it appeared there was something hidden underneath her bra strap, like some kind of tattoo. There was no telling what it was, since most of it was covered by the black and red fabric.

" _You_ didn't need to throw me in the water either!" Ruby snapped, such a snap that even made Weiss step back a bit, shocked by the sudden burst. It wasn't quite like the argument they had yesterday when Weiss hit Ruby with a rock she'd kicked—that was just a consequence of Weiss' own anger—this was a genuine pang of anger that she had not expected from Ruby, and she didn't stop. "How would like it if I threw you into the water…" Ruby told her, and as she did she grabbed Weiss' arm and began to pull her into the water with her. Weiss began to panic as she just realized Ruby was taller than her, and that also meant she was stronger too.

"No-no-no-no-no-no-no-NO, _HEY!_ "

And just like that, Weiss was sitting in the water soaked all the way up to just below her chest. She was speechless to say the least, her mouth agape and eyes wide with shock at what just happened.

"Well, can you get up," Ruby asked, holding her hand out. "Or do you need my help?" Her eyes were narrow and cold when she asked, but at the same time Weiss could see part of that glare wanted her to accept Ruby's help, even though she was the one who got her there in the first place.

Regardless, Weiss took a moment to think it over. In any case, her pride was already somewhat broken; if she accepted Ruby's help, that would only further damage it. But nobody else was around, so what? Was pride really that crucial, even during their current circumstances? No, how could it be? It wasn't like there was horde of paparazzi looking to capture what could be described with a headline that said: "Weiss Schnee took a fall, helped up by childish girl." Perhaps she was overthinking it.

With a reluctant sigh, Weiss reached up and took Ruby's hand. She half-near expected Ruby to doublecross her and drop her back into the water, but that didn't happen. Ruby actually helped her up. _So maybe she's not completely childish._

Once Weiss was steady on her feet again, Ruby said, "Alright, didn't you say you saw something in the trees?"

"Just follow me," Weiss groaned, "It looks like a platform or something."

Ruby and Weiss continued towards the structure hidden in the trees. Curiosity filled both the girls minds as they approached what appeared to be some kind of watchtower built with a couple palm trees, it would've been undetectable by satellite in account of the tree leaves that covered the roof. A perfect cover for an unknown entity. But the girls were relieved to discover that they weren't the first ones on this island.

The watchtower was certainly an odd sight to behold, and not quite what they were expecting to see on the island. By the looks of it, Ruby had to guess it was some kind of military lookout.

"Maybe it was left over from World War 2?" Ruby asked, but she knew Weiss's guess was as good as hers (or worse).

Weiss only shrugged, she had to agree with Ruby on this fact, because she had nothing better to offer as a more accurate assessment. At this point she was beginning to think Ruby had a lot more to offer knowledge-wise than she did,

A rope ladder led the way up to the top, one of rope and wood. At first glance it seemed perfectly safe to climb, but Ruby was once again stopped by a forceful grab to her shoulder.

"If that ladder is as old as I think it is, it will snap the second you put your foot on the rung." Weiss kept her grip on Ruby's shoulder, then to the back strap of her bra after Ruby shrugged her off. Now it was like a tug of war between a dog and it's owner holding its collar. Just before the tugging got too intense, Weiss turned Ruby around to face her. "I'm not sure what you're trying to prove, but whatever you're trying to find won't be up there."

"First, get off of me…" Ruby said, using her arms to force Weiss's off her shoulders, "second, how do you know there's nothing up there if you don't check?"

"I say it's not worth breaking my neck trying to find out," Weiss said. At first Ruby thought she was over exaggerating, but Weiss decided to make her point clear by proving how unsafe the ladder was: she grabbed one side of the ladder, and pulled on it. The very next moment the rope snapped, leaving all the rings to hand from the end that was still tied to the other rope. Ruby looked at the broken rope, then to Weiss, then to the rope again, and then back to Weiss...her jaw agape the whole time.

"But, but...but…"

"No buts, at least now you se-" but she was cut off at the sound of something that might as well have been a scream of bloody murder in the distance.

" _AAAAAAAAAAAGH!"_

"What happened n-..." Weiss asked, but when she saw Ruby making a run for it she cut herself off and did the same. "Hey, wait for me!"

* * *

Yang threw the stick as far as she could towards the beach. She went through with the cauterization, but she only held the burning piece of wood on Blake's leg for a single second before she clammed up and began backing away rapidly. All the color was flushed from her face and her eyes were wide with awe stricken horror at what she had done—of course she didn't completely burn the wound shut, but she couldn't believe she let herself go through with it. As if being told to, she kicked at the ground to push herself away, putting a large gap between herself and the others, who seemed just as surprised as she was.

Tears ran down Blake's face after the ember made contact. The pain was worse than anything she'd imagined, why did she ever think this would be okay? She looked down at her leg, now it was a deep pink all over about half of her thigh, swelling and a latent burning pain marked by the body's own natural defenses kicking in—now working overtime to deal with an added problem. Without even realizing it, she closed her eyes and passed out.

Pyrrha and Jaune looked at eachother, then to Yang. They could see Yang was now looking at her hands, how violently they were shaking; trembling with fear at the realization that hey were just used to perform a very bad deed. The intention was pure, but the execution was horrific—and now the aftermath would be that much more difficult to handle, and it was all her fault.

Or was it?

Yangs attention turned to Jaune and gears began to turn in her head. This had been Jaunes idea, and yet he didn't make any sort of gesture to be the one to act on it; instead he let either Pyrrha or herself do it while he sat idly by. "You asshole," she said, "why did you let us go through with this?"

At this, Jaune threw his hands up in the air and said, "Why're you blaming me? You all agreed to it!" He put his hands back down and told her again, "And my point still stands that there wasn't much else we could do."

"What kind of excuse is that? We were panicked; we didn't know what to do!" Yang spouted.

Then Pyrrha spoke up. "Yang's right, we overreacted—I overreacted, and Blake...she was in so much pain before that she probably wasn't even thinking straight—we should've wrapped the wound back up and waited for Ruby and Weiss to come back to see if they found anything."

Jaune thought it over. It never crossed his mind that Ruby and Weiss would find anything of use, especially not where they were right now.

As if on cue, the sound of rapid footsteps broke through the wall of trees that surrounded the camp. Ruby and Weiss came rushing through moments later, and both looked completely exhausted, but their tired looks would be replaced with those of horror as they saw what happened to Blake's leg—it was covered in blood, but they could tell there was a burn mark were the cut resided.

"What...the hell...ha-...happened?" Weiss asked, still trying to catch her breath. She got no answer, however. She figured maybe everyone was scared of giving her an answer for fear of being chewed out.

Ruby, on the other hand, said nothing of what happened to Blake, both out of utter fatigue, and complete shock of the sight she was seeing. Her gaze then fell to her sister, who was curled up with her back against a tree on the other side of the camp. She saw the horrified look in her eyes, and Ruby knew Yang wouldn't have this terrified expression unless she had been through something truly horrific—that's when Ruby put two and two together, and her worst fears realized.

"Yang…?" Ruby said, hoping that she was wrong about her fears. However, Yang didn't answer, and that made Ruby worry even more.

Ruby walked over to Yang and knelt down beside her. She could feel Yang was shivering as she rest her hand on her shoulder.

Ruby said again, "Yang?" Then she added, "What happened...why is Blake's leg burnt?"

After a painstakingly long moment of silence, Yang finally answered, "Her wound opened back up...we were panicking...and Jaune thought we could burn the wound shut…Pyrrha offered, but couldn't do it—and I guess I can't either…"

Ruby let go a gasp of shock. She could very clearly see that Yang had indeed did it, but it sounded like she bailed out only too late. Still, the feeling was all the same, and Ruby took it upon herself to try and get everything back into order. Her sight fell back to Blake, and Ruby made her way towards her in her knees. The wound was a grotesque sight to be seen for sure; an almost-red pink that oozed with blood, and now appeared ready to invite god knows what kinds of infectious bacteria.

But unlike the others, Ruby knew some things, she only hoped that what they needed was actually here on the island.

"Alright," Ruby said, "Yang, Weiss, you two are coming with me."

"Wah- Why me?" Weiss asked.

Then Ruby took her arm and said, "Because I think this may be educational for you." Her attention turned to Yang, but she hadn't yet made any effort to stand up. "Yang...come on, I need you for this," she said, but Yang still didn't move. " _Yang."_

"Right…" Yang said, finally snapping out of her trance. She stood up to follow her sister and Weiss, but her mind was drawing a blank on why, so she asked, "Uh...what're we looking for?"

"Aloe Vera," Ruby said, and she disappeared through past the bushes. Weiss and Yang had little choice but to follow. Jaune and Pyrrha remained with Blake.


	6. Chapter 6: A Remedy

Aloe Vera is probably one of the most prevalent plants in the world that can be drank as tequila, or used as an herbal remedy when conventional medicine is not available. It was a pretty household decoration too, and it didn't ask for much. All the water it would need would come from the rain in the sky, and all the care it would need was next to nonexistent. Bottom line: Aloe Vera, like most cacti (even though it is not cactus, but a succulent), is a tough plant to beat. Ruby knew this, but she was very much interested in the medicinal uses of it.

Ruby also learned in her pharmaceuticals class that Aloe Vera grew pretty much everywhere. The probable with that was that it wasn't an exact science where in the world it grew. For all any of them knew, the only viable patch could be on the other side of the island, and there was still no telling how big an island this was. However, Ruby wasn't going to let that deter her, or her helpers.

"Yang, you know what you're looking for, right?" Ruby asked.

Yang nodded. "Yeah, somewhat tall patches of leaves growing from the ground—light green, I think," she said.

Ruby nodded and told her, "Close enough…" then she turned to Weiss and said to her, "Weiss, you got that?"

"Clear as crystal…" Weiss moaned, "how is a plant going to help us anyway?"

That got Ruby to stop in her tracks. In the same instance, she turned around and said to Weiss, mildly shocked, "It's a natural remedy for most light injuries, but it's especially effective on burns—sort of like Neosporin."

"Uh huh…" Weiss said.

The three searched all over for about ten minutes. Ruby kept on in the same direction, forcing her helpers to keep up. Their brisk pace had to have brought them quite some distance away from camp, and not one leaf of their desired plant in sight. Ruby knew where to look, as did Yang, and Weiss tried to take note of the spots the sisters were looking in: places where the sun would shine through and where the ground was moist (the latter pretty much being everywhere it seemed), and with the clouds getting thicker and darker it was becoming more and more difficult to discern where was viable and where was not.

Out of latent curiosity, Weiss asked Yang, "So who had the bright idea of thinking burning someone's leg would help them?"

But Yang gave no answer, she just kept her silence. Maybe it was for the best, as she and Weiss weren't really intent on conversation anyway, and because Weiss didn't know just how deeply doing what Yang did got to her.

"Leave her alone," Ruby told Weiss. "The important thing is that we find what we need to fix this mess."

"But it was _their_ mess—a mess that wouldn't have happened if we've been there," Weiss argued. She looked back to Yang, and said, "I bet it was that blonde guy—what's his name?—Jaune. It was him, wasn't it?"

Still, Yang didn't answer. Weiss was right, of course, but Yang wasn't in the mood for passing blame anymore. She just wanted to make things right, and she was glad Ruby came back when she did.

"Weiss!" Ruby snapped, having become tired of Weiss' prying into her sister. Weiss backed off, but only to walk up in front of Ruby the moment after.

"Don't you think we should've known about what they were going to do before they did it?" Weiss asked her, mad that Ruby wasn't showing the least bit of curiosity at all.

But Ruby didn't falter. She looked Weiss in the eye and told her, "You think I don't care? Of course I do. You may not have heard it, but Yang already told me—I'm not blaming anyone, because right now standing here and dwelling on it is not good to help anyone."

At that, Weiss backed down. She visibly surrendered by crossing her arms and stepping away from both of the sisters and going her own way. Ruby rolled her eyes and continued in her own direction as well, and Yang followed her.

* _boom~*_

Thunder rang through the air and the sky, and the forest became ever darker. The storm was getting closer.

" _Lord, please let it be here_ …" Ruby muttered under her breath. Her glances became more rapid and the time she spent looking for the plant was sparse.

Yang too began to panic. She was wishing she had a flashlight right about now—actually, she was wishing she had a lot of things: her phone, laptop, her backpack, another shirt...all of it lost on the plane. Not that it would have mattered, probably.

*crac- crac- cra- _CRACK!*_

" _Woah-gah…ooof!"_ Yang tripped and fell through a tall buildup of brush, branches and vines and leaves following her on the way done as she landed on her hands and knees.

Yang scanned the area around her and found she stumbled upon a clearing laid in rocks. She also discovered that she had scraped her knee, and she winced in pain as she tried to stand.

" _Damn…"_ Yang said to herself. Then she thought, _add long pants to that list._

Yang fought her urge to let her leg go as she pulled it up to see just how bad it was. It was a large scrape, very bloody too. She tried moving extending and contracting her leg to get a feeling as to how much she could move it, even though she thought that wasn't what you were supposed to do, but it appeared it was just a bad scrape—easy to wrap up and walk on, barley.

Not moments later, Ruby came through the same clearing. She called out, "Yang—oh, there you ar-" then she caught sight of her sisters knee. "What happened?"

"I just tripped," Yang said, standing up like nothing happened. "No big deal…"

Except, to Ruby, it was a big deal. Already Ruby could see trails of red running down her leg. Ruby pinched the brim of her nose in annoyance and said, "Can't we go one day without someone getting hurt?"

"Guess not…" Yang answered, weakly.

"Well, unless one of us is willing to go topless for the sake of a bandage, you're going to be walking on a hurt knee until we get back to camp." Not exactly the thing Ruby wanted to say, but as she said to Weiss: there were bigger issues—a knee scrape could come after dealing with a burn. Regardless, she was happy Yang nodded in agreement.

The sisters looked around the clearing. It was a surprisingly open area of space, Ruby had to guess it was about four of five acres. She looked around the landscape again, black rock covered every inch of the ground from one edge of the tree line to the other. She took another look at Yangs leg and noticed there was soot or dirt around the area where it had been scraped, and the same residue was on her palms too.

"This place must be the sight of some kind of dormant volcano," said Ruby, but she couldn't figure out why there was a volcanic rock deposit so close to the camp—and they weren't that far, from what Ruby could tell anyway. Thankfully with the sight of volcanic soil Ruby could confirm that if this was a volcano, it had been dormant for a long time.

"Hey, over there!" Yang shouted as she pointed ahead. "Is that what I think it is?"

Ruby looked where Yang pointed, and sure enough just on the edge of the tree line was what they were looking for: Aloe Vera. Small leaves of it, but it was enough to give them hope. Ruby said, "Yep, that's it!"

The pair made their way towards the plant. The bushel was no larger than either of their heads, probably started growing a couple months ago, and there were only two or three leaves large enough to be useful for their needs. Ruby took those larger leaves and left the rest to grow.

"Come on, let's get this to Blake," Ruby said, and Yang followed her as they made their way back to camp—the skies had become very dark now.

* * *

Jaune and Pyrrha waited patiently for the other girls to return. They busied themselves with setting up the inflatable pillow stretched between the trees, it turns out it could cover more space if it was torn open. Now the polymer sheet covered most of the living space. It was just in time too, because raindrops began to fall.

"There we go—tell _me_ how to tie a knot..." Jaune mumbled, taking in and appreciating his handiwork that he knew Yang would come and criticize any minute now.

Pyrrha had moved Blake closer to the fire, she tried to be extra careful not to upset her leg, as if it could've been any worse.

The sheet was set up at an angle, that way any falling water would runoff and end up making its way to shore. Jaune and Pyrrha looked to see if there was something they could use as a container to catch some of the water, but there was none to be seen. That was no matter though—after all, what was the worst that could happen, they drink from the small waterfall? One thing at a time, they reasoned. At the very least they were glad the fire was safe from the falling rain.

"You're sure the fire won't burn through that, right?" Pyrrha asked. She was unsure of the structural integrity of a material meant to be stretched, much less one set up over an open flame.

"It'll be fine, as long as the fire isn't too big, I think," replied Jaune.

"Yang and I will probably slide it up a bit later when the rain stops," said Pyrrha, "just to be safe."

 _Safe._ The word was just laughable. Jaune sat down, back against a tree and face towards the fire, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the mention of the word 'safe'. So far there was nothing _safe_ about their current situation right now: they weren't safe from Blake falling ill to infection, they weren't safe from Weiss (Jaune had a feeling she was a time bomb—then again, he thought the same of Yang), they weren't safe from starvation, they weren't safe from whatever wildlife may reside on this island, god forbid...in short, if there was a list of words that could describe the groups situation, Jaune would put 'safe' at the very bottom.

Regardless of what he thought, Jaune forced himself to say, "Yeah, you might be right."

A long pause followed thereafter. As Pyrrha sat down she cupped her hands under a stream of water that fell from above in its concentrated flow, catching a complete handful for her to drink. When she was done she did the same for Blake, though it was difficult for her to feed water to a girl who was passed out, probably asleep now...she recalled a trick she learned from her mother, tilting Blake's head slightly forward and letting the water drip from her finger and down her throat, massaging Blake's throat every other moment to insure no blockage would occur.

Jaune couldn't help but watch how Pyrrha handled herself so cooly. Right and true she seemed to know what she was doing in every instance he's been able to observe, but out of everything Pyrrha has proven herself to be capable of, one thing stuck in Jaunes mind that he couldn't stop thinking of...and frankly it was a ridiculous thought.

"Hey Pyrrha…" Jaune started, waiting for her attention. Once she made eye contact he asked her, "when you saved me, what did you have to do?"

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked back, because as far as she knew, she thought she did everything right—unless Jaune knew something she didn't.

"When you got me out of the water, I mean...what did you have to do?" Jaune quickly reiterated.

Then Pyrrha knew exactly what he'd meant. She told him, "I performed CPR, you weren't breathing so I had to do chest compressions..." It was true, of course, but a part she left out made her blush slightly—thankfully the glow of the fire hid it.

But Jaune pried, and asked, "That's it?"

"...I also did mouth-to-mouth," Pyrrha added, though by painful concession. She couldn't figure out why she felt awkward about it, especially when it was nothing to feel awkward about since she did it to save his life. Maybe she was overthinking it—yes, that was it. There was nothing wrong with doing something that would save someone's life.

"So I was really close to...dying, huh..." Jaune said.

Pyrrha stood up the moment he said that. "I- I need to…" but she never finished her sentence and walked out into the rain, away from camp.

"Woah, woah, hey! What'd I…?" Jaune protested to Pyrrha leaving, but it was too late. "What did I say?"

Jaune heard the shaking of leaves shortly after he and Pyrrha's exchange, and he got up to welcome Ruby and Yang in their return.

"Alright, we need to get the gel out of these—Yang get a rock and find something smooth…" then she saw Jaune was holding the cloth for Blake's leg, "Jaune, you just stand by, we're going to need that soon." Jaune nodded. Then Ruby said, "I'm going to clean off her leg."

While Ruby did her job preparing Blake, Yang took the Aloe Vera leaves and set them on a smooth-ish stone before taking another one to squeeze the gel out. She broke one end of the first leaf off, and on the other end she began to press the rock down and slide down the length of the leaf. Not the most efficient or effective extraction technique she would've used, but you make do with what you have. Besides, she was still able to get a decent amount of the clear gel out.

Ruby took a good dollop of the gel and applied it to Blake's leg, keeping the majority of it covering as much of the burn as possible before she took the cloth from Jaune to wrap it up. Once she tied the knot, the sisters both relaxed.

"Alright, first crisis averted…" Ruby said.

"Wait- what do you mean _first?"_ Jaune asked.

"We have to wait for her to wake up first, then wait to see if she gets worse—you didn't think that would be it, did you?" Ruby asked.

Jaune remained silent, knowing after all of that, this only happened because of a stupid suggestion he made, and now he felt even worse about it after seeing how well Ruby handled it—and how she tried to fix his mistake, but still the blame was on him.

"What's up with Pyrrha?" Yang asked, looking towards the girl who sat in the rain.

Jaune rubbed the back of his head, and told her, "I...I don't know...I guess it was something I said."

Yang gave him a stern look, and said, "Of course it was."

* * *

The rain had become a full downpour after an hour. No longer was the island bright and shining, it was the sight of the crying heavens. The winds were powerful and wailed their screams as they cut through the rocks and trees of the island. Lightning flashed in the sky with its telltale boom that followed moments after. It truly was a thunderstorm.

Amber eyes fluttered open. Blake had finally woken up from a painful-now-peaceful time of rest, she was hoping was just another bad dream, but then she remembered this was reality...and the pain she had felt before had returned. She examined her leg and found that a very different bandage was in the place of the one Yang took from her shirt, but strangely enough her leg didn't hurt at much as it did...before.

"Glad to see you're awake," said Yang to her, though she wasn't looking directly at Blake, she was looking at her leg, and Blake could see she was hurting over something. Then Blake remembered Yang had volunteered herself to try and cauterize her leg. But Yang paid no heed to Blake's gaze, instead she told her, "Ruby, Weiss, and I went out and found something to help with your leg—the burn shouldn't be too big of a problem now, and the cut might heal a little better, but we'll see soon enough."

But Blake didn't buy it. She may have been incoherent for the past couple hours, but she knew this wasn't how Yang sounded before. Maybe it was just shock, but Blake convinced herself not to press further, thinking Yang didn't need the pressure right now.

The sound of wet footprints were heard, and Pyrrha walked back under the safety of the makeshift canopy. She was soaking wet but she didn't seem to care, though she was shivering and wasted no time in getting herself in front of the fire.

Ruby noticed that after all that happened, she hadn't seen Weiss in over an hour. "Hey, has anyone seen Weiss?" Ruby asked, she sat adjacent to Pyrrha at the fire.

"Haven't seen her since you guys went out looking for that plant," said Pyrrha, "Are you sure we shouldn't go and look for her?" she asked.

"It's not like you guys went very far," said Jaune, who was holding a stick over the fire and watching the embers burn. "She'll turn up...probably…" this elicited a hard punch in the arm by Yang. " _OW!_ Really? Of all people, you were the last person I expected to be concerned about her."

Yang crossed her arms as she glared at him, and Jaune found himself slowly pushing himself away from her. She told him, "She's a bitch, but it's not like I want her dead or anything."

And then there was silence. Blake looked about the circle of teens around the fire, first to Yang; she didn't see it before, but Yang had a bandage on her knee she knew wasn't there before, and it was stained red just like her own bandage. She then watched as Jaune moved away from Yang and took his new place between herself and Ruby. (Why he didn't just sit between Ruby and Pyrrha, she didn't bother herself to try and figure out.) And Ruby, she took her journal out of her pack and started writing.

Ruby wrote:

 _June 7th, 2018_

 _Today was...interesting. This morning was like waking up to Christmas Day with the bags that washed up to shore, but then it went all to hell probably right after me and Weiss left for food—oh, yeah, we didn't find any food either, it's raining like hell so we're just going hungry tonight—turns out Jaune, the genius he is, thinks it's okay to burn someone who has a deep cut. Word from the wise (who would be me, cus I'm the one who had to stitch up Yang from time to time...more on that later) let the one with actual brains practice medicine, not the monkey with the wrench. At least Pyrrha has enough sense to take care of the smaller things._

 _It wasn't all terrible, though. Today gave us incentive to go and explore inland a bit. Definitely returning to the dormant volcano, I'm going to call it 'The Patch' for now, 'cus its like a patch you'd put on a crack in a vase, but the obsidian is what I'm interested in, I'm glad I dabbled in Mayan history, because you can do a lot with a rock like that. The watchtower was interesting to see too, I'll have to remember to go back there too and see if there's anything worthwhile—I just hope Weiss is wrong and she would've broken the ladder for nothing._

 _All and all, if I had to give today a grade for my satisfaction, I'd give it a solid C-, and that's me being generous. Looks like everyone is on edge after 'that thing' today. I'm worried about Yang, and frankly I wish she didn't do what she did, even if Pyrrha couldn't do it (none of them should've done it anyway)..._

Ruby paused to check on Yang. She sat across from her and appeared to be walking in her own thoughts. She kept a hand held up, palm facing the fire while she stared blankly into the flames. Even through the glow of the fire Ruby could see Yang's eyes were somewhat duller than before—something that usually occurred when she deeply regretted something, Ruby learned.

Ruby wrote one last thing:

… _I'm going to have to keep an eye on her._

With that, Ruby clicked her pen closed and slid it back into the spine of her journal, then it into her bag. Now was as good a time as any to stand up and start calling out to Weiss, but before Ruby could even do so the group heard something coming.

* _snap, crack!*_

The bushes were forced apart, putting everyone on alert as they thought something was going to attack them. They would calm down when they found it was just another familiar face: Weiss's face—and the way she was looking at them all made them think there really was a wild animal ready to kill them. She breathed through her gritted teeth in loud hisses, and practically threw Jaune out of the way as she stole his place at the fire.

"Well excuse you," Jaune said.

" _Don't...talk to me…"_ Weiss snapped at him. Ice cold eyes locked with bright blues and threatened to cut them out should she decide to. Jaune wouldn't chance that, though, so he took his original place next to Yang. (Against his better intent, of course.)

Nobody else said anything more, as if Weiss were now the official roadblock for all verbal traffic within the group. Considering the circumstances of today, maybe it was for the best. There wasn't much else to talk about anyhow, with the rain pouring throughout the day everyone just tried their best to relax. At least they had a water source to drink from, but rainwater was worthless without anything to retain it. All the group had was the fire, and the remaining flammable material available that was still dry enough to burn throughout the day.

* * *

No one in the group was wearing a watch, but by their yawns they knew nightfall had come. It was still raining, of course, thankfully they got their makeshift canopy hung when they did, otherwise tonight might be a little too wet for anyone's comfort. However, a rogue stream of water trailed its way through the camp and into the fire, nobody seemed to care though.

Blake and Weiss were the first to fall asleep, so at least there was two less people for the others to contend with. The rest of the group looked about ready to fall asleep too, especially Yang, but they stayed awake as if they were waiting for the fire to go out. It was looking slightly dim after all.

Jaune couldn't stop looking at Pyrrha, and he could see she was about to nod off and fall asleep. He wanted to apologize so badly for whatever he said before she went to sleep, just to get the burning feeling of guilt off his chest for making the moment she saved him feel awkward in some way. Then again, staring at her wasn't any better either. He reasoned that starting tomorrow he would try to find some way to make it up to her, however that was to be achieved. For now, he would rest, and let sleep take its course—he slept better when it was raining anyway.

Then it was just Ruby and Yang. The sisters remained on their opposite sides of the dwindling fire as they waited for the weight of tiredness to take them down into the void of dreams. Ruby watched as Yang only continued to stare at the fire for however much time it had left before its last ember went out. Ruby hoped today's events wouldn't impede her sister's ability to lead the group: but if that was going to be the case, Ruby made it a point to remember to set up some fallbacks in case Yang couldn't handle her role anymore—be it either herself or Pyrrha, she wanted someone who had their head on straight to lead. _What was the saying: 'let cooler heads prevail.'?_

When the fire was little more than a candlelight, Yang hung her head down and fell asleep, not even bothering to lie down, but just fall asleep in the half-cross legged way she sat—Ruby knew it would be hell on her neck, but something told her Yang didn't care.

As for Ruby, she stayed awake just a little while longer, just long enough to enjoy the peaceful sound of raindrops falling. It thundered every now and then, but the lightning that would usually come before it had subsided, perhaps the storm would end sometime during the night, or maybe early morning. But that was besides the point, and Ruby took in a nice long and deep breath as she savored the moment, taking in the crisp cool air. It was refreshing, and in her mind it was as good way to end the day as anything else

Then, Ruby could feel it; that sign that she was at her limit for today, and that it was time for her to rest as well. She got her spot ready, this time using one of the bags they found earlier as a pillow. As she lay, Ruby too found herself looking into the flame, and she could see why Yang did too—it was truly a mesmerizing sight to see. As the flame grew smaller, so did her eyes feel heavier.

And with one last wisp of air, the fire went out...and so did Ruby.

They would rest, for there would be a lot of work to do in the time to come.


	7. Chapter 7: Starved: Part 1

_June 10th, 2018_

 _Note to self: do_ _ **NOT**_ _misplace your bag!_

 _Yes, I lost my bag (and by extension, my journal) but I found it again after a couple days—I left it at the Crab Nest, apparently—probably the most eventful thing that's happened since Thursday._

 _Not much has happened. The rain we had these past couple days kept us well hydrated, so there's that. What we really need is food, though, and that's been hard to come by. And yes, we're out of crab...well, we're out of adult crab. The baby crabs won't be big enough for a few months._

 _Blake is looking a lot better than she was the other day. She had a fever for some time, but that broke yesterday—the rain was perfect for keeping her temperature down. Her wound is looking better too, the bleeding has pretty much come to a complete stop, and the Aloe worked exactly as it should've...thank god, we were nearly out of cloth from that blouse. But there's still a ways to go; that means she can't stand on that leg just yet._

 _I'm still worried about Yang. She's been leading us okay, but...I don't know...she's been distant. I know she's not sleeping well—none of us have, but she worse than others. I'll have to talk to her when I get the chance...preferably when we're alone._

 _Alright, that's all to report for now…I gotta get back to my side project._

Ruby clicked her pen closed and stuffed it and her journal into her pack. This time she made sure the bag was where she could see it at all times. Just as she wrote, she returned to work on something she tasked herself with while everyone else waited. She'd been able to return to the _Patch_ while the rain let up a little bit earlier the day before, what she came back with was a few pieces of loose obsidian.

The problem with obsidian was how tough it was to work on, in both ways literally and metaphorically, Ruby learned. She spent the better part of two hours twiddling away with a small stone, working ceaselessly and carefully to carve the volcanic glass to shape—a task that was proving a massive challenge.

* _crack*_

" _Son of a-..."_ The piece of obsidian broke apart the wrong way. Ruby took a breath before she spoke any further. She wanted to yell, but she had neither the energy or the will to do so. So she settled with an angry hiss as she tossed the ruined piece aside. Though that didn't mean it was entirely useless: Ruby knew there were other uses for smaller Obsidian bits, but that was a project for another time; she had no patience to start right now.

The other pieces of obsidian came out more like what Ruby had planned for them: long-ish pieces that were suitable for primitive knife blades, but that wasn't what she had in mind...for now at least.

Just beside Ruby's hip laid a bunch of long sticks she found, ones that she had been careful to test and make sure they were adequate for the purpose they'd be used for. But before she continued any further, she wiped her head of sweat, so much that her fingers glistened in the sun as the little droplets trickled down her hand. It was mid afternoon and it had become very humid after the rain stopped. Combined with the incessant heat of the fire and the camp was just short of being a less-than-relaxing sauna.

Ruby wasn't the only one who the humidity was getting to: everyone else was sweating bullets just like her, Jaune and Yang most of all, but Ruby knew her sister could stand the heat. Jaune, on the other hand, looked about ready to tumble over.

As usual, Yang directed Jaune on what to do. They weren't at eachothers throats like before; all they were doing was breaking up sticks and twigs to be used in the fire for later. All Yang did was tell Jaune what sticks to break and how to break them—a simple enough task that neither felt the need to argue over.

Oddly enough, Weiss appeared unphased by the heat, despite wearing the same long sleeved top and skirt she had been for four days now. You'd think after taking a plunge in the water twice and four days she would've found the will to change into clean clothes. But she appeared to be totally comfortable, and that was unnerving to say the least.

"Weiss, aren't you hot in that?" Ruby asked. She thought maybe Weiss would make some effort to change into something more appropriate for the climate. She herself still wore the same red shorts, bra and shirt since they ' _arrived'_ at the island. Under the circumstances, the idea of wearing nothing at all sounded just as good as standing under an AC vent...the only thing stopping Ruby was her own insecurity and strong sense of decency.

But Weiss shook her head. "Nope, this is fine." Conversely, she removed her hat and wiped the building sweat on her forehead. Ruby thought it was just her being very self assured, but frankly she wasn't in the mood to argue.

Speaking of moods, Ruby looked around and her eyes rested on Yang. She never thought to bring it up, but she knew Yang wasn't acting the way she did before. The orders she'd give Jaune were more passive aggressive (in contrast to just outright criticism), and she differed to Pyrrha more for some tasks that Jaune otherwise was thought to be incapable of. And her attention was mostly focused on Blake, which often led to her relieving Ruby and Pyrrha from the daily care of Blakes bandage and doing it herself.

Needless to say, Yang appeared drained to Ruby. Not quite like Jaune, who always appeared tired, but that she didn't have the same light in her eyes as she did before. Ruby knew Yang had been staying awake longer than the others, practically always waiting for the fire to go out before she went to sleep. How did Ruby know his? She cracked open an eye to check on Yang, of course, and every time she'd see Yang slumped over staring at the fire.

"Alright, that's enough…" Yang said to Jaune, her tone dull and passive, other times it would've been argumentative, but not this time. Without another word they both discarded their set of sticks and separated from each other. Ruby could tell their hunger was getting to them too, she could see in the way they walked—which was more of a trudge that was marked by their feet dragging across the sand with every other step. She's noticed the same with herself, Weiss, and Pyrrha (who seemed to be holding up better than the rest, mildly), fatigue was hitting them hard.

Pyrrha remained near Blake, and in her hand was a bottle of water, one of the few good things that's happened recently. The bottle floated up onto the beach and Pyrrha was on a walk at the time, she found it and it became the groups drinking gourd. However, much of the drinking was reserved for Blake, something Weiss fought against and argued that the bottle should be shared amongst the others...she was overruled, barley: the vote was four to two. Yang came close to wanting to punch Jaune in the face for siding with Weiss, but that never happened, and the water bottle was kept for Blake's consumption for the duration of her recovery.

"Here, it's time for you to drink again." Pyrrha unscrewed the cap and offered the bottle to Blake.

Blake accepted the bottle, but she only took a small sip and returned it to Pyrrha. "I'm not that thirsty, thank you."

But Pyrrha returned the bottle back and told Blake, "Hydration is important, and your wellbeing takes precedent over the rest of us." Despite this, Blake refused the bottle. Pyrrha decided not to argue, if Blake was feeling well enough to stretch out how much water she drank, that might be a good sign.

" _And_...done." Ruby took a breath of relief as she held up the success of her handiwork for all to see: a spear composed of obsidian and twine.

"How's _that_ going to help us?" Weiss asked.

Before Ruby could answer, Pyrrha took one look at the spear and knew exactly what it could be used for. "We can use it to catch fish."

"Exactly!" Ruby chanted. "We just need to find a place that has a lot of clear water... and obviously fish."

"I thought you needed a fishing pole to catch fish," Weiss asked.

Then Pyrrha refuted, "Actually, spearfishing predates conventional fishing by several thousands of years. Fishing poles weren't conventionalized until the eighteenth century."

Everyone just looked at her in shock, even Ruby and Yang were impressed. Ruby more so because she was just improvising; she didn't know she was about to imitate a real ancient survival method.

"Were you a history major as well?" Ruby asked. On top of everything else, the possibility of Pyrrha being a history major was a massive intrigue for Ruby.

But much to Ruby's dismay, Pyrrha shook her head. "My mother is a Greek history professor, that was one of the things she taught me as a child."

"Does that mean you learned how to do it?" Yang asked. Like everyone, she was eager to get started on solving the groups food situation, and she was hoping Pyrrha would say yes. _Please say yes- please say yes…_

Again, Pyrrha shook her head. "Sadly I never learned, I only know what it is."

That didn't do anything to help anyone, Pyrrha could see that. She knew whatever light they were all looking towards her for was going to run out eventually, she couldn't do _everything_ like some super hero: but she also knew that they were desperate, she couldn't hold that against them...she was desperate too. So Pyrrha told them, "But I suppose it can't be too difficult."

"Alright," Ruby said, "why don't you and I go to the _Crab Nest_ an-"

"Why don't I go?" Jaune broke in, much to Ruby's surprise.

...More than surprised: Ruby was shocked. Of all the people in the group, Ruby wasn't expecting Jaune to volunteer himself to try and bring in something for the group to eat, nor did she have much faith in that outcome either. However, that did give Ruby some pause for thought; as far as she was aware, Jaune really couldn't do much without being told, and after the fiasco three days ago with Blake's leg she was _not_ inclined to leave Jaune with the others. So really, this was something he chose to do if his own initiative, _and_ she wouldn't have to deal with anything stupid Jaune might suggest and walk into yet another catastrophe started by something he said.

For Ruby, it was a no brainer. She looked to Yang and could see she might've had the same gears turning in her head as she herself did. Yang silently gave Ruby the affirmative to make her decision with a subtle nod.

"Alright," Ruby threw Jaune a spear, "you and Pyrrha will go, and do _NOT_ come back until you caught something or the sun goes down…" Then Ruby paused. She had to admit, asserting authority felt good, in a scary way. She remembered this feeling well a couple days ago; she felt powerful. But she seldom enjoyed having power, so she settled with only giving orders when it seemed no one else would think of anything else—Yang being the ' _no one else'._ Ruby ended herself off by throwing Pyrrha a spear too and saying, "It'll be faster if both of you go, good luck."

"Thanks." Without another word, Pyrrha departed from the camp and Jaune followed.

Then there was silence, met only by the waves of the sea and the crackling of the fire. The sun continued to beat down on the camp, even through the thick palm leaves the heat was still felt by the still very moist air.

Weiss, who'd been leaning against a tree the entire time, walked off in the other direction and said to the others, "I'm going for a walk, I'm bored."

"Yeah, sure, just make sure you come back by nightfall...wouldn't want to have to go and look for you," Yang said. Her reply from Weiss came in the form of her middle finger raised. She paid it no mind, mostly because after the night they went to get Aloe they pretty much forgot about Weiss; the gesture was less than what she felt they deserved. At least there was now two people gone who she didn't have to deal with for the time being.

Ruby got up from where she was sitting and started walking in the same direction. "I'm gonna go with her too—better to be in pairs than get lost."

"I'll stay here then, make sure the fire doesn't go out," Yang said. "Take care, ya' hear?"

"Yeah, I got it." Ruby picked up her bag and waved farewell to Yang.

Now there were only two members at the camp. Yang let out an exasperated sigh and laid her back against a tree, having grown tired of being hunched over...she already had a massive headache induced by hunger, she didn't need pain in her back too.

Yang knew she wasn't the only one with a headache. It was typical for anyone to have one if they didn't eat for a long period of time—but for three days, the result of that might as well have been akin to every heartbeat feeling like a hammer striking them in the head...it made Yang wonder how some religious people could go through nearly a month without food.

 _No, thinking about it will only make it worse..._ Yang's head pulsed with the thought, forcing her to lay her head against the tree trunk as well. She thought maybe some rest would take care of some of the pain, all the while she tried to think of something else, anything else that would ease the pain, but every time she did it always circled back to food.

 _*grrrrrr*_

A deep moan escaped her lungs, her growling stomach only reminded her of the pain she felt in her abdomen; that she also tried to ignore. But frankly, headaches and hunger pains weren't the only things bothering her.

The sounds of scribbling caught her ear just before she fell too far into rest. She cracked an eye open to find out what it was, only to find Blake scratching away in a notebook. Her pen strokes weren't as secure and confined as one would when they were writing, these were more erratic and broad.

"You drawing something?" Yang asked.

Blake didn't look up from her notebook. "I am, actually," she said. "I haven't been able to sleep at all last night…" she took a deep breath, like Yang, she was in pain too, "I thought maybe if I drew I could put myself to sleep."

"What do you like to draw?"

That made Blake pause for a moment. Then she looked up from her notebook, though she was not expecting to be making conversation. "What?"

Yang repeated herself, "What do you like to draw?"

Blake took another moment to think about her answer, not because she didn't know how to answer her, but because she was trying to adjust to actually talking to someone. Even then, her own social anxiety was one thing, but under the circumstances she felt kind of awkward talking to Yang. She thought to try and stuff that awkwardness down, after all, if she was going to spend a long time here, she might as well have gotten used to her new company.

"Just...things…" Nope. She couldn't bring herself to talk about it... _why am I so damn shy?_

To Blake's dismay, this compelled Yang to get up and move towards her. Blake got so nervous she closed her notebook and held it in her chest before Yang could see any of what she was working on. She remained like this up to the moment Yang lowered herself against a tree next to the one Blake sat against.

"What kinds of things?" Yang asked. She had something else in mind when she wanted to talk to Blake, but that could come later. For now, she was interested on what Blake was drawing.

But Blake didn't answer. She didn't want to. Yeah, she was more comfortable around Yang because Yang stood up for her on the plane, but there were some things she wasn't comfortable with revealing about herself: the contents of her notebook for one.

Yang could see Blake was being cagey, she thought maybe Blake was afraid of what she would think of her work. The. She had an idea…

"My sister Ruby likes to draw…" Yang told her. This drew Blake's gaze towards her, her eyes very telling that she had some interest in what Yang had to say, so she continued, "I'd walk into her room and there would be these amazing scenes of wolves and roses, I think she got it from her mom."

" _Her_ mom?" Blake repeated, intrigued by the choice of words.

But Yang was t surprised. "Ruby and I had different mothers."

"Oh…" This was a surprise to Blake, though in retrospect it made sense; considering Ruby and Yang were like two completely different people. "So was her mother an artist?"

"A florist, actually," Yang said, "she had a shop near our home and Ruby and I would help arrange the flowers, sometimes Ruby went there just to practice drawing the flowers...you'd love it if you saw how skilled she was."

"I have no doubt about that," Blake said. Then she asked, "What do the wolves depict?"

"Honestly, I don't know…" Yang went on to explain, and Blake listened, "It's always a pair of wolves; some are sleeping together, others are of them chasing a rabbit...I think they were telling a story of some kind, and every one of them has something that looks like a rose."

"I see…" Blake said. "Does she still draw?"

Yang took a moment to think, she rest her chin between her thumb and forefinger as she tried to think of the last time her sister drew anything...only to realize that she couldn't remember a point recently when Ruby _did_ draw anything.

Yang said to her, "I don't know...I guess they stopped a while back and I never noticed."

"Fair enough," Blake nodded. To Yangs surprise, she brought the notebook from her chest and rest the spine between she and Yangs thighs, like it were on a stand while Blake opened it to flip the pages.

Yang was stunned—and that was an understatement—the notebook was full of drawings, both colored and uncolored, of other people, objects, and scenery. Mostly people, though, and those ones had a much greater level of detail than the others; so much so that Yang thought they rivaled Jack Dawson's from _Titanic_ —there were even some pinups, which Blake tried to flip past quickly—but the manner of which she flipped through seemed like she was looking for something else, even beyond some of the ones Yang insisted she wanted to take a closer look at.

"I drew these at the request of people I've met while traveling the country, they paid me to draw...anything...and that's what kept me fed…" Blake told Yang. She finally took notice of Yang's hand trying to stop the pages turning, so she slowed down to let her have a better look. She stopped on one, a colored number of a girl with bright blue hair and a boy with what looked like a tattoo under his eye; both were holding hands and smiling while walking down a beach.

Blake said, "This one is one of my favorites...I think they said they were getting married a week after I drew them. They offered to let me stay with them until the ceremony, but I already scheduled my fare to the next state, so they insisted on paying me double instead."

"That's very sweet of them," Yang said. She could see why they made such an offer: the drawing was simply gorgeous.

Blake smiled. "It was, I rarely ever accept gifts like that, but they were so kind I just couldn't refuse." She started flipping through the pages again, the notebook was rather thick—even more so than Ruby's journal—there had to be at least a hundred drawings Blake did, maybe even more. There were random sketches, some that Yang figured were experimental drawings, more people, one of some kind of five petaled flower, then more people…

"Who's that?" Yang asked, causing Blake to stop at a colored portrait of a girl with apple red hair and purple eyes like her own.

"This is a girl I met in Kentucky. She was a little hard to talk to because she was so aggressive and assertive, but in her own way she was really sweet—an almost perfect personification of an oxymoron...kind of like you." Saying that made her laugh.

"She's beautiful…" Yang said, but then her brain registered the last part of Blake's sentence. " _Hey_!" She laughed and lightly shoved Blake's shoulder.

Blake only laughed more before she cleaned her throat to continue on. "Anyways... _ahem..._ there's a really funny story behind this one: I never charged her for the drawing. Neither she or her brother could afford even my lowest price because they barely made any money, but she baked some really good honey buns as a trade—I was nearly starving at the time and had no money, so I figured it was a good enough trade."

"...Until you ran out of honey buns." Yang ended her sentence off.

And Blake nodded, and laughed. "Yes, _until I ran out of honey buns..._ but in my defense, the honey buns _were_ amazing."

She started turning some more pages, this time as frantically as she had when she first opened the book. She was no longer intent on letting Yang see just any of her drawings, as Yang _did_ want to see what she was drawing. This eventually lead to a segment of the notebook that seemed to be blank on both pages.

But Blake stopped in the middle of turning the to next page. A wave of nervousness came over her, so much that she couldn't reveal to Yang what she had kept hidden behind that one blank page. She physically couldn't bring herself to do it.

"That's all…" Blake said. Without another word she closed the notebook, she wanted to make it look like that was the end of the drawings she had done.

Yang looked at her with mild confusion. The drawings she'd been shown were certainly complete, and have been for a while. Even the experimental drawings Blake had appeared to have some essence of completion to them. She had half a mind to think that wasn't all of them—especially since she swore she saw a much larger piece of paper tucked away in between some of the later pages. But she didn't argue with Blake, if that was all she wanted to show then she wasn't going to carry on any further.

Blake closed her notebook, allowing Yang to stand up so she could leave her side, but Yang did still have one more thing to say to her:

"I'm sorry…"

The apology didn't register with Blake at first, and she was thinking maybe Yang thought she did something to upset her. She didn't, really, but Blake had to ask just to be sure.

"Sorry for what?" She thought Yang was apologizing for having her hopes up about what more there was to her notebook.

But that wasn't what Yang was talking about. "You know," Yang said with a mild hint of crypticism as she looked at Blake's bandaged leg.

Then Blake caught on. "You don't have to b-"

"But I want to..." Yang interrupted, her assertive tone returned and Blake could be sure she saw a faint glow in her eyes. "If I don't say it now, I don't know when I will."

Blake shook her head. "You did what you had to d-"

"No," Yang interrupted again, "If we had waited for Ruby, we wouldn't have had to do that—we shouldn't have listened to Jaune."

Hearing that had caused Blake's nervousness to be replaced by something else, a sort of heat that she hadn't felt in a long time, a fire in her heart that shook her whole body to the point her lungs began to heave heavy with hot air. Anger was what she began to feel, and it broiled over. She saw what Yang was doing by blaming Jaune, and on top of what she could hear in between her pain filled rests and headache filled wakefulness, she couldn't believe Yang was using Jaune as a shield.

Before Yang could open her mouth to say anything more, Blake threw her notebook down on top of her bag and said something to Yang with a pair of fiery eyes of her own:

" _You should get off of his back! He was only trying to help...it might not have been the greatest decision in the world, but you were the one who made the decision to take Pyrrha's place and burn my leg shut—you might not like it, but YOU made that call!"_

Yang's own anger had surfaced too, and she wanted to defend herself with every ounce of her pride that she had to give, her first impulse even forced her to bring her arm up into a first while she hissed with bared teeth. However, beneath her hard-beating heart and anger that made her skin feel like it was on fire, there was also a pang of understanding that kept her from fighting—because Blake was right.

She wouldn't admit it though—not yet anyway—so Yang swiped her fist around in the air and let it rest back to her side before storming away into the tree line.

Meanwhile, in the back of Blake's mind, there was a moment of regret…

 _Did I go too far?_


	8. Chapter 8: Starved: Part 2

"Pyrrha, how much farther are we going?" Jaune asked. The two had passed the crab nest some time ago, and Jaunes legs were already beginning to show signs of tiring despite the relatively short walk. Moreover, his stomach curled with knots as his hunger grew, his body was using whatever it had to sustain itself while he labored to find something for it to consume.

Pyrrha didn't answer his question. Not because she intended to ignore him, but because she was focused on finding a viable place to fish—maybe a little tunnel visioned too. That and she was walking a few paces ahead of Jaune, so she might not have even heard him even if she wanted to. Her stomach too felt like it was eating her from the inside out: but she hid it better than Jaune could.

Regardless of how either of them felt, the afternoon sun continued its own reign of torment on the island. The air had become so thick it felt like breathing warm soup, such humidity was murdersome.

Jaune wiped his forehead of sweat, little beads of water trickled down his arm not long afterwards. Disgusting, that's what he thought it was. What he'd give just for a decent breeze, but the world granted no such gift today it seemed. The only air that was moving was wet and rising up. Though, he noticed he wasn't the only one who was sweating horrendously—Pyrrha flapped the front and back of her shirt to try and fan in some cool air beneath the damp fabric. He too had a similar problem, maybe even more-so, having made the mistake of wearing a shirt made of synthetic fabric—the shirt was soaked, but unlike Pyrrha's, his felt like he was wearing a blistering hot sauna. It was dreadful, to say the least.

But they both carried on their way, despite their discomfort. They kept walking along the beach at a steady pace. Nothing was in their way that they had to worry about. All they had to fear was their own growing lack of energy. They tried to take to the tree line to be in the shade, maybe they could grant themselves just a little longer—but that too had its own host of problems.

" _Nnng…" Splat!_ Jaune slapped his neck hard. He brought his hand into view, and there lay the remains of a mosquito, now little more than a pale splotch of grey with a small hint of red—it had only _just_ landed on him and barley got to suck any blood. Of course, where there was one mosquito, bounds more would be not too far. Jaune then slapped his forearm, then the other, then his neck again. " _Rrrrg, I hate these things."_

Pyrrha finally turned back to him, seeing how he struggled almost drew a laugh from her, only her own sense of discipline kept her from breaking out, even if it was truly hilarious. However, seeing his struggle also gave her an idea to help...which she too would've had to do for herself anyway, especially after killing a mosquito on her wrist just now.

"Hold on, I think I know how to help with that," she said to Jaune. She then began to scan the ground for something very particular. However, when she couldn't find what she was looking for, she told him, "Um...l'll be back." The next moment, she left Jaune to disappear into the brush.

And there Jaune stood, sweating and itching horrendously. There were a number of things he hated, but aside from the sweltering heat, mosquitoes were at the top of the list.

Another mosquito landed on his hand, and like all the others before, it fell victim to the bottom of his palm. But this was the final straw, Jaune couldn't take it anymore. He began to pull his arms into his shirt, and then his head, and buried himself in the damp fabric—a necessary discomfort given the alternative. Darkness was all he could see now—you could say it was what a turtle would see in its shell.

Jaune had remained crouched with his back against a tree for a good long time. He didn't know where Pyrrha went, but he wasn't going to risk moving and getting lost himself. No, he was going to stay right where he was until Pyrrha came back.

Then he heard something shift in the brush. He wasn't sure what it was, but he wasn't going to figure it out from inside a shirt.

But then he heard laughing, and Jaune knew he had nothing to be scared of.

"Jaune, _ha-ha-ha,_ what are you doing?"

Jaune poked his head out from his shirt. Once he met Pyrrha's eye he saw that she'd been carrying some very long leaves, ones that were almost as tall as herself, though he had no idea what they were. He watched as she took the leaves to a small rock, then she took another rock and began crushing the leaves into a pulp. Jaune honestly had no clue what she was trying to accomplish.

When she was done, Pyrrha took some of the pulp into her hands and rubbed them together. She turned to him and said, "I don't think this is how it's supposed to be done, but it'll have to do. Come here and bring out your arms."

Jaune was dubious, but he didn't argue. He did as Pyrrha asked and brought his arms out of his shirt, then he crawled towards her. She took one arm and rubbed the crushed leaves against his skin, then she took his other arm and did the same. Although, he still didn't know what she was doing, so he asked her, "What is this stuff?"

"Lemongrass," Pyrrha said, "the oil in the leaves acts as a mosquito repellent, though I'm not entirely sure how well this will do since we don't have the equipment to extract it." Despite her crushing up quite a few stalks, what she ended up with was a pulp that might as well have looked like bits of raw parsley.

Jaune raised a brow. "Huh, well, we'll just have to see then, won't we?" Jaune asked as Pyrrha started lathering his face with the pulp. He could tell this wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she got the idea, but perhaps it would do for the time being. Once she was done with his arms, Pyrrha also did his neck—couldn't be too careful, then she finished up with him and moved on to herself.

Unlike Jaune, Pyrrha wasn't wearing long pants, so she had to rub her legs with the grass shavings as well as her arms. Once that part was done she moved on to her arms and did the same thing. Then her face was last. She took what was left of the shavings and rubbed as much of her face as she could, she didn't think she had enough to do the job, but there was.

Now that both had some protection from insects (as poor it may be), Pyrrha stood back up and said, "Alright, we should keep moving."

Jaune had no objections, and even said so as he stood up, "Yeah...and, uh, hey…"

Pyrrha turned back to him, wondering what he had to say.

Jaune took a moment to let what he had to say come to him. It wasn't too hard, so when he built up the will, he said, "Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it, but that was a good idea."

Pyrrha smiled, and told him, "Thank you."

* * *

Jaune and Pyrrha kept walking down the beach for about a half a mile, though it felt longer, and both of the teens were beginning to feel like they were at their limit. Pyrrha even insisted they stop for a moment to regain their strength, but Jaune too insisted that he wasn't about to get yelled at by Weiss or Yang later on for taking too long—Pyrrha couldn't blame him, but she stood by her suggestion regardless.

The heat of the sun wasn't any better either. As time rolled by, the rays began to strike hard at their backs. They had to depart from the tree line over it becoming too thick to navigate, and now they were practically burning up with the thin layer of oil on their skin...as if walking around in sweat soaked and lukewarm shirts wasn't bad enough. Soon they would need to drink something, but there was no source in sight.

Perhaps there was one saving grace to their walk: at least with the sun past high noon it meant they would make their walk back to camp in the shade.

"We're gonna make it all the way around the island at this rate," Jaune said, among other comments he'd said before.

"Maybe, maybe not," Pyrrha replied. She didn't mind Jaunes comments, he's barely had any chance to really speak his mind since the plane crashed, aside from arguing with other people, which in itself wasn't all that much to say. Then Pyrrha said, "Worst case scenario, we will end up having to walk back empty handed and it will be another day without food."

"Yeah, _very_ reassuring," Jaune quipped. Now he wanted to change the topic. But to what? Hobbies? _No, too cliche._ Pets? _Eh, I don't think she's a fan of pets._ Favorite food? _Poor timing._ It was becoming a toss up more than anything else, but Jaune wanted to pass the time in more ways than just spouting curses about the walk they were on.

Then, Jaune finally figured out what to ask her, he just needed to put it into words. "So, uh, Pyrrha...what did you do before ending up here?" He asked, though now he was cursing himself for even bringing it up. He wasn't sure if Pyrrha was still bothered by what he said the other day or if she had gotten over it—whatever it was.

Pyrrha, a few paces ahead, had heard him this time, and she slowed herself down so Jaune could catch up. Once they were eye to eye, Pyrrha said to him, "I'm a gymnast on some days, training and competing in competitions, and on my off time I would work as a lifeguard. Is that what you meant?"

Suddenly all feeling of regret died off, he actually felt relieved she answered him. Now he thought he could carry on the conversation. So Jaune nodded and said, "Yeah—and cool, sounds like a lot of fun."

Pyrrha smiled and nodded as she said, "Yes, it was. My parents would be so proud whenever I won a medal or just did my best—I didn't even have to win, they'd just be happy I competed and gave it my all."

"Sounds like a great life to lead," Jaune said.

"Indeed," Pyrrha said. But then her smile died down into a frown, "God, I wonder how my parents are doing with the news about what happened. They must be worried sick."

"At least you have family that worries about you," Jaune said. "Apart from maybe one of my sisters, I don't think my family even knows what happened to me."

What Jaune said didn't help, and Pyrrha took issue with it. "That's rather pessimistic. I'm sure they're all just as worried about you as mine are with me."

Jaune gave a long sigh; on the one hand, he wasn't so optimistic, and on the other hand, Pyrrha was probably right.

"Maybe," Jaune said. And that would be all he'd say for now. _Well, that was probably the most depressing smalltalk with a girl I've ever had._

"What about you?" Pyrrha asked. "What did you do before ending up here?"

Jaune cleared his throat and said, "Nothing really spectacular; I just finished my first year of college, I was supposed to go to work as a cashier for GameStop for the Summer...but I guess my manager will have to wait on that interview."

"Heh, I probably would've liked to stop by to pick up a game or two," Pyrrha said. "I had my eyes set on the newest Guardian Tales: Curse of the Dragon King."

This is a big surprise for Jaune. "No way! You play Guardian Tales too?" he said.

"I've played all three…" Pyrrha told him, "And I was very excited to hear the fourth was being released—I even bought the pre-order pack as soon as it became available."

"That's awesome!" Jaune said. "I would've gotten it for free had I started working at the store."

"I suppose that's a great deal; you sell the games for the store, it's only fair you get your pick," Pyrrha said.

"Yeah, exactly!" Jaune said, frankly he was happy this conversation turned a direction he could carry on comfortably in. "What was your play style? Mine was a Norsa Paladin with a shield and sword."

Pyrrha laughed. "I always went as a Ceracalian bladeswoman, dual wield...though I've been leaning towards a shield and sword myself in my later playthroughs."

"Hey, it's a good balance of offense and defense," Jaune said.

And Pyrrha nodded. "Indeed—maybe if we make it back home, I'll create a character who only uses a sword and shield."

"You don't see me arguing," Jaune said.

The pair kept talking while the flow of conversation was strong, thankful to have something else to think about other than the sweltering heat and their empty stomachs. Their walk was only a little more enjoyable now, so they thought they'd try and make it last for as long as possible.

* * *

Neither of them had watches, but if one had to say, it was probably somewhere around four or five, and Jaune and Pyrrha were still walking. It was certainly a pilgrimage to holy salvation, and their faith was the only thing that kept them walking through all manner of pain they felt, inside and out.

The heat had gone down a lot, but the humidity was still everpresent; wet and muggy as it had been all day. Even the breeze was warm and unwelcoming.

There was one silver lining, though, and that was the sound of what one of them thought was a waterfall, or at least something that sounded like one. That was a good sign. It was through a section of trees that appeared to cut off the beach; impassable by foot, only to be swam around in the water.

"Come on," Pyrrha said, determined to not let a bunch of plants get in her way. "There has to be something through there." It wasn't long before she followed the sound through the trees, and Jaune tailed close behind so he wouldn't end up in _someone else's_ position.

There they were, once again traversing the trees and rough terrain. Somehow it was even warmer within the tree line than the beach, perhaps it was the moisture from the plantlife evaporating; maybe it was because the sun still managed to cut through the leaves and branches and heat up the local flora to unbearable heights. Suffice to say the pairs shirts wouldn't be dry for a while.

Despite the heat (and the mosquitoes that happened to hide away in the plant life) the way through the trees wasn't all that bad. At least it wasn't all that difficult to walk through, maybe some tight spots, but nothing impossible to sift through.

Then Pyrrha pushed a beach out of her way, and the next moment it snapped back at an unsuspecting Jaune in the face with a loud _twap!_

" _Gah!"_ Jaune yelped as he was sent falling backwards.

Pyrrha jolted around to face him after the accident, her face pale with worry as she said to him, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry!" She knelt down next to him as he cupped the side of his face with his palm.

"I'm- _hsss, ah,_ I'm fine. Just got a little scratch, that's all," Jaune said, but what Pyrrha saw when he moved his hand told another story. His cheek had a long gash, and it bled out of the spot that took the brunt of the hit.

Pyrrha helped him back up onto his feet. "We'll have to get that washed up," she said. "Come on, I think we're almost there."

Jaune nodded, and was led along with his hand held by Pyrrha; the two were once again back in track in locating the source of the sound of water. The woods and shrubbery were becoming noticeably less dense than before, so they were able to pick up the pace and walk much faster. Pyrrha didn't let go her grip for a moment.

Just a few more steps, and the two encountered a wild hedge. But they didn't come this far to let a piece of overgrown bush get in their way. They pushed with all the strength they still had to make an opening; little twigs and branches curled and snapped as their hands ripped into the hedge.

" _Come on...just a little more…"_ Jaune groaned, forcing every muscle in his arms to use what little energy they had to dig further in and separate the shrubbery.

Pyrrha did the same, putting every ounce of muscle into her arms and back as she pulled ceaselessly.

And with one last tug, some dirt had broken off from the ground and fell into what was revealed to be a short drop, taking a small chunk of the hedge with it. With the new pathway made, Jaune and Pyrrha were amazed with what they found.

"Well, holy shit," Jaune said. His face broke into a complex expression that appeared torn between excitement and utter disbelief; the feeling of waking up and feeling like he was still dreaming; being shown something and not believing it with his eyes.

Pyrrha too was utterly stunned, and she would've fell to her knees if she didn't already realize she was on a ledge. All she could utter was, "Woah…"

They had indeed found the source of water falling, and it was water that crashed over a row of rocks around what appeared to be a lake made from a crater. It was rather small, no larger than a swimming pool in your backyard, and almost perfectly oblong in shape. Jaune and Pyrrha both had to think a meteor might have landed here generations ago, filling up with water until it became its own water mass.

"Hey, look, we could go around and start over there," Jaune said, pointing towards a part of the lake that was shallowest. Pyrrha followed his finger, and she nodded her head in agreement.

The two then both made their way along the brush till they walked out into a clearing, like a little beach of its own. The sand wasn't quite as light as the stuff along the shore of the island, but it was still soft enough to be kicked up as they trudged along.

"Look how clear the water is," Pyrrha said, "I think you can even see the meteor below the surface." There was a large, black rock that glimmered under the water, in fact.

"Huh, well how about that?" Jaune said, equally amused by the sight—and that trend became even more of a spectacle when he then realized a number of silvery objects were floating around the meteor. After thinking his eyes were deceiving him, he asked Pyrrha, "Um...please tell me that's what I think it is?"

Pyrrha's attention shifted from the meteor to the shimmering that caught Juane's attention, and she too was drawn aback by what she saw. A small smile of relief even curled on her face. "I think that's what we will be eating tonight," she said. And Jaune wholeheartedly agreed.

The two brought up their spears and proceeded to the water. However, while they both only took off their shoes and socks, Jaune noticed Pyrrha had stopped again just before entering the water. He turned back to see what she was doing, and the next thing he knew, Pyrrha was removing her shirt and shorts.

"Pyrrha…what are you doing?" Jaune asked, his cheeks blushed slightly, as he wasn't sure how to react to Pyrrha simply undressing in front of him.

Pyrrha didn't take everything off, though, leaving on a sports bra she'd been wearing as well as a pair of gym shorts. While Jaune was glad she didn't remove everything, Pyrrha felt the need to tell him, "I just didn't want my over-shorts and shirt to get wet. This way I'll only have to worry about these drying faster..." then she noticed Jaune was already ankle deep in the water, and his pant legs were already soaked up to his knees, "you're okay with going in the water like that?"

Jaune looked down and caught on with what she meant, and in retrospect she _did_ have a point.

" _Heh,_ um...I would, but unlike you, I'm just wearing my regular underwear…" he said, a rather half-assed excuse on his part.

"So?" Pyrrha said. But when it seemed he wouldn't budge on the subject, Pyrrha sighed and told him, "Alright, but the walk back is long, and I doubt you'd want to be wearing soaking wet pants for hours on end—you'll be chafing by the hour."

Jaune tried to imagine himself in the situation Pyrrha described, perhaps to try and find any holes in the theory that he could plug up. However, while there were few, the cons outweighed the pros. He had little choice but to agree.

"Um, alright, fine…" Jaune said. Then, he walked out of the water, and once he was back on the sand he undid his belt and pants and slid them off. He wore black briefs underneath. He wasn't too thrilled about it, but he knew from experience that this could've been a lot worse…" _I'm just glad I'm not wearing that pink stained underwear."_

"What was that?" Pyrrha asked, barely able to hear the last part.

Jaune would've told her that it was nothing, but he didn't see much reason to keep it a secret. So he told her, "Oh, I had this accident a couple years back with my sisters and I's laundry. I was the only one who wore white underwear, and my youngest sister made the mistake of putting them in with the reds, so I was just saying I'm glad I wasn't wearing the pink underwear."

This made Pyrrha laugh, maybe a little too hard. "You're serious? _Ha-ha-ha!_ What did your parents say about it?"

Jaune decided to start laughing himself as he said, "My parents were proud that she knew how to operate the machine... _oh, never mind you ruined your big brothers underwear, you get a gold star for being grown up._ "

" _Ha-ha-ha,_ that's terrible," Pyrrha said.

"Yeah, and my parents won't let me get rid of them, so I've been buying these ever since to try and phase out the old ones." He stretched the fabric on one of the legs of his briefs as he finished his sentence just for emphasis.

"Well, I guess now you won't have to worry about wearing the pink ones at all for a while," Pyrrha told him.

Jaune nodded. "Yep...I guess that's kind of a plus." It was a grim way to end that topic, but it was good enough smalltalk, Jaune thought.

Now that that was out of the way, Jaune figured it was time to do what they had come all this way for. The pair took up their spears once again and walked into the shallows of the lake, it was lukewarm from the sun shining down on it all day, but it was far better than the feeling of sweat and oil crawling down their backs.

The two ventured out until the water was just above their knees. The nearby fish swam away, of course. Time will tell soon enough when the fish would return, acclimated to their new visitors presence; all Jaune and Pyrrha had to do was wait.

"Jaune, if we're just going to be standing here for a while, do you want to talk some more while we wait?" Pyrrha asked.

Jaune nodded. "Sure," he said, "what about?"

"I'm not sure…I suppose whatever comes to mind?" Pyrrha responded. She took a moment to come up with a starting question. "How about where you were going?"

Jaune broke his eye contact with her when she asked that, and his lips grew thin and curled inward, forbidding words from forming and instead being replaced by a subtle _hsss._ He didn't want why he was on their flight be the focus of conversation, especially not when it could very well be nothing exciting to learn about.

Pyrrha noticed that Jaune was not so forthcoming about answering. She figured it might've been something personal. Although, if it were, she'd figure it might have something to do with a recently deceased relative in another country and he was going there to attend service—the only flaw with that theory was quite simple; he didn't appear to be someone who had family in other countries. But both were very grand assumptions, and Pyrrha knew it wasn't her place to make such assumptions. It would quite simply be rude if she were to comment on either count.

None of that could stop her from attempting to move forward with the conversation. So she told him, "How about you ask me why I was on the plane?" She gave him a soft smile; a sincere grin that was hard to ignore.

Jaune thought it over, and he was already seeing now that there were two pros to this talk now. 1.) He already meant to ask her anyway, although he never planned it quite like this. And 2.) He was glad Pyrrha was offering to go first—at the very least he knew she was sincere about talking.

Now that his scales were weighing in about even, Jaune caved and said, "Alright, sure. Where were you going?"

"I was supposed to catch a connecting flight to Australia when we landed in Fiji," Pyrrha said, wasting no time in giving her answer. "From there, I would've lived with my grandparents while I trained at an athletics academy so I could later qualify for professional competitions."

"Wow, so it would've been a big step up from the smaller competitions, huh?" Jaune said.

Pyrrha nodded. "Yes, it would have, but now I won't be so sure I'll be able to anytime soon."

"I'm sure when we get off this island you'll be able to pick up where you left off," Jaune said. "I mean, it's not like you were late on purpose, right?"

"I suppose s-…" Pyrrha paused, and her whole body seemed to freeze as she felt something bump against her leg. Her fingers curled around the shaft of her spear and pointed it down towards the water, her eyes trained on a fish that appeared to wonder what were the odd things that intruded in its home.

When Jaune caught wind of what was happening, he joined her in the new game of quiet and still as a rock. He decided to let Pyrrha try and make the first catch, better that than risk hurting the other.

Pyrrha kept her sights on the fish as it carelessly swam around. Sometimes it would swim between the two of them, other times it would swim just out of reach of their spears. Sadly, Pyrrha never got the chance to take her chance to skewer the fish after it swam away from them.

"Well...crap," Jaune said, visible disappointment blaring like a lit up sign on his face.

Pyrrha too was displeased, but she wasn't surprised either. "There's always the next try," she said. She decided to return to their original conversation, "Anyway, now you know where I was going. What about you?"

"Heh, what would you like to know?" Jaune asked, still a little apprehensive.

"Whatever you're comfortable with," Pyrrha replied.

Jaune considered it, and it was reassuring to him that Pyrrha told him her side first. Now it only seemed fair that he held up his side of the deal and tell her why he was on their flight as well.

"Alright...but mine probably won't be as good as yours…" Jaune said.

"It's not like we're competing," Pyrrha told him.

Jaune took a breath and nodded. He gathered his thoughts, and once he had his story together, he told her, "My family likes to go on a vacation every summer. We've been doing it together as a family for twelve years, each time to a different country—this time, we were going to New Zealand."

Pyrrha's hand went up to her mouth and her eyes. And before Jaune could continue, she asked him, "Were they…?" But thankfully, Jaune answered shortly before she could finish.

"No, they're probably camping out at the airport in Fiji, or maybe even at New Zealand…" he said.

"Why weren't you with them?" Pyrrha asked, though somehow she felt she already had the answer. She was also glad what she was thinking wasn't a reality. It was far too horrific for Jaune to keep his feelings about it bottled up for this long had it been real.

Jaune explained, "The plane we were supposed to go on was overbooked by one seat— _one...seat—_ and what do my mom and dad do? They went behind my back while I'm in the bathroom and accept the offer of a free ticket to any destination—which of course they already filled in for Fiji by the time I came back."

Pyrrha only stood, shocked. He didn't exactly come off as angry as he was coming off to be. Perhaps he just grew so used to it anger didn't register anymore? Who knows?

Not knowing how to respond, she decided to let Jaune continue.

But Jaune didn't want to break down into a tirade in front of her, so he took the moment he gave himself to finish what he had to say. "Maybe they're worried, maybe they're not. I don't know. But what I _do_ know is that when it comes to me, I'm second, even to all my younger sisters—even my older sister gets to be considered first. That's why I don't think any of them are worried about me, or if they even know yet."

"I'm sure they probably did consider how you would feel, and I'm also sure they do know and _are_ worried about you," Pyrrha said. "Had I been in your position, I probably would have been upset too…" but then her gaze shifted away from him, and she deadpanned, "I don't know what it's like to be a sibling, but I do know from a friend that family is all you have when everything else fails."

That drew a slight grin on Jaunes face. "You're probably right, thanks."

Pyrrha returned the grin, although she didn't say anything else. It was no matter to either of them, though, what was said was already enough.

Jaune looked up at the sky, and already he could see the signs of the day becoming late; the heat had gone down by a good degree, and the sky was a tad darker in hue. If they didn't catch anything soon, they could be looking at another day without food.

Then, another wave crashed against the rocks, and from it came another small school of fish to wonder about their new home. Jaune and Pyrrha heard the unforgettable squawks of seagulls flying overhead. It turned out Jaune and Pyrrha weren't the only ones there hunting for dinner.

Thankfully, the most recent wave was able to push the groups of fish closer to the boy and girl. They readied their spears and let physics do the rest.

Pyrrha had made her target. A small cluster of fish came at her from behind her left shoulder. She felt she'd made a mistake being turned around and away from them, but she was certain if she could catch them on the pull back into deeper water than she'd have a chance.

Jaune too had set his sights on a small group of fish, only he had a better advantage than Pyrrha. The fish were coming at him head on, and he would have a clear shot in a few moments. The tide anticipation was high, and both he and Pyrrha were wading in it. Neither said a word, for fear of jinxing their greatest opportunity to finally eat after a few days passed.

Then, their time had arisen. The fish were in their path, and their spears were ready to begin stabbing down.

Once the fish were in critical proximity, they picked their targets and jabbed down.


	9. Chapter 9: Starved: Part 3

Weiss kept the brim of her hat low now that the sun was inching inching down past noon. It was still high, but she was wishing she had a pair of sunglasses right about now, but sadly the ones she had were lost in the crash, so her hat would have to do—and it was a pretty good hat.

Although she was reluctant to at first, Weiss allowed Ruby to tag along as long as she kept her distance. Establishing her personal space was on Weiss's radar—maybe on account of a few incidents in her experience with the sisters—but at least Ruby was a little more bearable than Yang. That didn't mean Ruby had to be satisfied with it, though.

Ruby knew she'd gotten sunburned during their walk, she could feel it by the slight tinge in her face, arms and legs. It was annoying, but it was her own fault for not putting on a decent coat of sunscreen.

Weiss stopped in the middle of her tracks and said, "Ruby, you're getting too close."

"Are you kidding me? I wasn't even five feet from you!" Ruby whined.

"Five feet isn't far enough, you dunce," Weiss argued. "I heard you trying to walk closer." She actually didn't, but she owned the lie as if it were the truth. Thankfully, Ruby didn't argue with her, so they resumed walking in a tense/peaceful fashion.

Weiss was glad she didn't have any kind of task to do today, with Jaune and Pyrrha getting food, she had the freedom to just relax and walk. Although she would've preferred being alone. Why Ruby decided to come along was beyond her.

Soon enough, the girls reached the watchtower again, although Weiss treated it as a one stop shop and continued walking. Ruby, on the other hand, took it upon herself to approach the platform. She intended to see what was up there after Weiss broke the ladder last time. So while Weiss went on walking, Ruby broke away, knowing full well that Weiss wouldn't care—she probably wouldn't notice either.

Once at the rope ladder, Ruby took her time examining the state of the platform. She could see nails and screws that were rusted beyond the thought of structurally sound, but the platform itself appeared to be made from some fairly thick wood, maybe it would hold up her weight. It was silly to think about, but Ruby thought she had to try and get up there. _It stayed up this long, right?_

" _Now how do I get up there?"_ Ruby said to herself. She took part of the broken ladder into her hand and looked up, it had been snapped at the very top, making it near impossible to climb that way—she figured the other rope would be just as weak. Ruby thought she could probably climb the tree the platform was on, but athleticism wasn't her strong suit—certainly not as much as it was Pyrrha's, and she didn't feel like her body had the energy to try. She couldn't ask Weiss for help, because she knew Weiss wouldn't bother to. Ruby was on her own with only whatever ideas presented themselves, good and bad.

Ruby settled on trying to climb the tree, even if she would struggle with aching pains and a very empty stomach. Although, Pyrrha made it look easy. What was to stop her from trying to do the same?

"Okay, all that time I spent in the gym, please don't fail me now," Ruby said as she rubbed her hands together.

Ruby set her hands and wrapped her legs around the trunk of the tree. She then took a shuddering breath and fought the pain in her abs as she attempted to pull herself up. She winced as the tree bark scraped against her sunburnt thighs while bringing them up, the raging fire in her nerves that roared as she struggled to hold up the weight of her weak body.

Now there was the daunting task of climbing up without the help of the ground. She pushed herself up with her legs. She pulled herself up with her arms. Waves of pain ripped through her skin with every move she made. Then her footing slipped about half way up, and she ended up sliding down a little before re-securing herself. Although, now her arms and legs hurt even worse than before.

Ruby took a moment to look at the palms of her hands, which were littered with rashes and scratches now. Same for the insides of her thighs, they were rife with swollen and irritated flesh.

Ruby thought it was pathetic, she just wanted to give up now and save herself the trouble. After the slip, it was evident enough that she didn't have the strength to continue on.

" _Come on Ruby- hsss, get your head in the game—you can do this,"_ Ruby told herself. She took more deep breaths and steeled herself until she was ready to keep going up.

Once again she started pushing herself up, but her sandals were making it near impossible to gain a proper grip, so she slid them off and pressed her bare feet against the trunk. Her legs trembled as her sore muscles were forced to perform a very demanding task. Little by little, though, she was inching higher up. It was painful, but she was doing it.

Now Ruby was further up than she had been a couple minutes ago. She was almost within an arm's reach of the platform. She thought she could do it. Just another push up, and the she-

 _Slip!_

She fell.

" _Eeeeep!" Thud!_ Ruby's eyes were forced shut after landing hard on her back and having the wind knocked out of her lungs. Never mind the pain from her sunburns or scraped skin, now her back hurt from falling several feet. " _...Ouch."_

She tried to turn herself onto her side, but a sharp pain in her spine prevented her from even moving an inch. So Ruby gave up, and decided to take the moment to rest and catch her breath.

" _I think I'll just lie here for a bit...yeah."_

* * *

Weiss kept on walking. Contrary to the way she was acting these past couple of hours, she too was hurting from hunger. Her legs felt weak, but she kept up the facade that she was doing fine despite knowing Ruby wasn't following her anymore. Her stomach churned, slowly eating her body away while it waited for something else to feast on.

She didn't know where she was going, of course. She thought she might come across nothing and have to circle back to camp, it was starting to appear that way after a while. There was nothing to see along the shoreline beyond the occasional large rock or two.

Weiss kicked at the sand, sending a small plume if it to be carried off by the wind, grazing past her ankles. She let out an exasperated sigh, then she spotted a small rock and decided she'd kick that too—but she quickly found out that was a big mistake.

" _Ow! Fuck!"_ She fell to the ground as she gripped her foot. Her big and middle toes were now inflamed and red, one of her toenails was cracked, and part of her big toe was bleeding.

" _Rrrrrrrrr,"_ Weiss growled at her own folly. She took out her frustration by taking the rock she kicked and threw it into the tree line.

Weiss needed a breather after the short fit. Aside from the bleeding, she felt she could walk around on it just about as fine as before. Although, it would be sore for a little while. Thankfully, it could've been worse: she could've broken her big toe or even all of her toes. But it was only a broken toenail and a small cut, so she begrudgingly quit moping about it and stood back up.

As she continued her walk, Weiss was now wishing she'd worn shoes or boots rather than sandals—before then, it was heels—her toes stung a little once the sand stuck itself to her new wound.

A few more yards down, Weiss had come across a pool similar to the one she and Ruby found with the crabs in. Although there weren't any crabs or the like that she could see, there was something rather peculiar that stood out amongst the rocks: some kind of crate that was covered in rust, about the size of a small coffee table.

Weiss's eyebrow rose as she looked upon the box like it was a dream or hallucination. She approached it and looked closely to see if there was any indication of what it might contain before opening it, unfortunately the severity of the rust made it impossible to make anything out. She figured the next best thing to do was open it anyway. She tried to undo the clasps holding the lid shut, but those too were rusted and jammed shut, and her frail hands didn't have the strength to do the job.

Her attention turned to the rocks on the ground, and Weiss had a new idea. She took a fairly large rock into her hands and lifted it over her head, letting it fall back down onto one of the clasps and breaking it.

Surprised at her success, Weiss did the same thing for the other clasp, and it too broke right off the side while taking some of the steel siding with it. She was in.

Now that she was finished with the rock, Weiss opened the lid to see what lay inside. While she anticipated for there to be something worthwhile, it turned out all the crate held was some kind of old machine. She was no engineer or whatever expert this thing required, she had no idea what it was, but she certainly knew it was old as hell by how crude it looked. It was like an old prop out of an equally old science fiction movie.

Weiss looked deeper into the crate, and to side she found an extended section with a sliding button within. Her eyes narrowed as she pondered what secretes might be held inside. So she slid the button forward, and jolted her hand back as a tiny drawer opened up; inside laid a single beige folder.

" _Now what do we have here?"_ Weiss asked, her intrigue growing more and more.

She took the file out from the compartment and opened it up. There was what appeared to be a photograph of the machine on the left-hand side, and then some papers clipped together. Unfortunately, both were far too faded and water damaged for her to gain a better understanding of whatever the machine was or what it did. There were some bits that she could make out to be English lettering, but it was too hard to read any of it to be sure. Only one part was definitely legible, and that was a part of a name...

 _Dr. Am-_

"Doctor... _Am,_ what? _Amphibian? Ambrose?"_ Weiss guessed at the names it could've meant. But it was no use. If she couldn't read the rest of the file, what was the point in even trying? So Weiss slapped the file shut, and then tossed it back into the crate. She then said, "Screw it...I guess I'm not going to get my afternoon reading today."

Now dissatisfied with what she found, Weiss knocked the crate lid over and let it slam shut. She knew it would be late by the time she returned to camp, so she decided it would be best to turn back and leave now while there was still daylight.

* * *

Ruby added 'back hurts like hell' to her list of ailments after recovering from her fall, sort of anyway. She rubbed her back up and down gently, and apart from a new soreness there didn't seem to be anything else seriously wrong that she could tell. She leaned forwards, backwards, and side to side. She felt soreness in her upper back, but nothing else that she could find out on her own. She could stand, though, that was the important thing. It hurt a little to step around, but at least she could move on her own.

There was still the matter of what was up on top of the platform. Although, now Ruby was seriously beginning to wonder if it was really worth the trouble trying to make it up there. If her difficulty climbing and then her subsequent fall were of any indication, she'd either need time to fully recover, get some help, or just completely give up. _Ugh, if only Yang were here, she could help me—or Pyrrha, she climbed a tree before, she could do it again if I asked her...probably._

Ruby rested her hands on her hips as she tried to think of whatever else she could try. Option A was already smothered by Weiss, regardless of whether the ladder broke or not; Option B...well...she knew how that went; what was her Option C? Probably not any better than B.

" _Hmmm…_ oh!" Ruby had an idea. She took her shirt off and began to roll it up tight. Once the shirt was taught, she wound it around the other side while she held onto both ends.

Ruby took a deep breath. Even that hurt. Her abdomen contracting, her lungs sucking in air, expanding her ribs and pressing against her upper muscles. She knew she would be scolded once she had the chance to tell the story, but if she was going through all this pain and awaiting the impending "I told you so", then she would at least go through it without having left empty handed.

Ruby bared her teeth, and she began to climb. She slid the shirt up as far as she could reach, then she hopped and latched her feet against the trunk. She winced as her muscles once again strained under the immense pressure she was putting them through, especially her back, which too bore its own special dose of pain as she pulled against her own weight. It felt easier, though. Now she was just contending with keeping her grip on her shirt while her feet remained on the tree. She slid her shirt up once more, and brought her feet up once more. And again. And again.

She was doing it. She was climbing the tree. A slight grin crept onto her face as she climbed further up. Yes, it still hurt her newly sore back, but she was now further along than she had been free climbing. _I can do this...I can do this…_

There the platform was again, in arms reach, and Ruby felt she was just about able to grab a hold of it. There was a strut attached from the platform to the tree, and she grabbed it before gravity sent her falling again—she made sure to toss her shirt atop the platform before bringing herself up. She felt she was safe now. All she had to do was reach the edge of the platform and pull herself up.

Ruby switched hands on the strut so she could reach the ledge, and once she grabbed hold she brought her right foot up into the strut while grabbing the ledge with her free hand. She had to be very careful now. She was leaning as far back as any cat would hanging from the ceiling, and there wasn't anything to catch her if she fell again. She might not have nine lives, but if the first fall was by pure luck, she knew the next wouldn't be so generous.

Now she was at the tricky part. She'd successfully reached the platform, but now she had to climb up with nothing but raw strength—something she struggled with already had she not been starving as well.

Ruby took a couple of breaths. She was already growing tired just hanging, and she could feel her whole body becoming enveloped in sweat, threatening to loosen her grip on the ledge. She only had one shot at this, so she steeled herself and prepared for the most difficult part of the climb. She let her foot slip out from the strut.

" _Wah-waoh!"_ Ruby yelled as her body swung violently back and forth. The edge of the platform creaked as it struggled to hold up her weight. Ruby too struggled to hold herself up, she thought she prepared her shoulders for the intense load they'd be carrying, and her back practically screamed in pain while it assisted the former, both wanted her to let go. But she kept her grip tight on the ledge, she wasn't about to let go just yet. She would hang there and let her body rest while she prepared herself for the next step up.

" _Hrrrrng...gyah!"_ Ruby swung her leg up, but she missed and her foot fell back down. She winced as her shoulder throbbed after the failed attempt. She didn't give up, though. It wasn't hard...okay, it was kind of hard, but to Ruby it seemed easier than how she got up where she was in the first place. Ruby took another set of breaths, and once again she swung her leg up. " _Yaaagh!"_

And just like that, she managed to get her foot up over the ledge. Now she just needed to get the rest of herself on top of the platform. She felt like she didn't have much left in her, so she put what she had left into a final pull up. It hurt like hell, but once she got her momentum going, she let her body weight to the rest and lazily flop down onto the platform.

" _Ahh…fudging finally…"_ Ruby sighed with relief. She could finally take a breather.

Ruby stayed resting on her back for a moment, she even shut her eyes. She retrieved her shirt and wiped her face of sweat dry, her whole body burnt like she'd been through hell and back. The sun didn't help either, she felt her face, arms, and legs tingle a little as the rays struck her sunburnt skin—she thought maybe she could tan her stomach to match if she stayed long enough.

Despite the glaring sunlight, Ruby thought it was pretty nice up on the platform. It was like she escaped the confines of the island for a moment and was in the clouds. She only wished it would've been like this had they arrived in Fiji, where she could lay under an umbrella and sunbathe while enjoying a Pinã Colada; Yang would be playing volleyball against four other guys she'd make friends with... _it would've all been perfect._

Ruby opened up her eyes again and sharply inhaled through her nose. She decided her break was over. So she rolled over ag-

" _AAAGH!"_ Ruby screamed as she jolted back, nearly falling off the platform once she discovered something very unsightly: there was an old corpse on the platform with her.

Ruby got onto her knees while she looked upon the corpse, surprised that there actually was something up here, but she never thought it would be the remains of another person.

" _Okay..._ this has got to be the freakiest thing I've ever seen," Ruby said to herself.

Something Ruby thought was odd was the way the man was dressed. They were tattered and faded, but Ruby thought he was wearing coveralls. She took notice of a sunny Japanese patch on its right shoulder, and the remnants of a couple letters and numbers just beneath it. Maybe some kind of regiment identification? Ruby looked further down, and noticed the man had a knife jammed into his stomach, his fingers wrapped around the handle.

"Did he kill himself?" Ruby asked, even though it was obvious. Aside from the unpleasant scenery before her, she was somewhat delighted to have found something that was actually useful...she only wished it weren't stuck inside a corpses abdomen. " _Ugh,_ whoever they worship in Japan...please forgive me."

She didn't want to do it, but Ruby grabbed hold of the corpses fingers and pried against them. There was a surprising amount of fight left in its literal dead hands, but she managed to rip the fingers off the knife.

Ruby felt like she was going to be sick, she could already feel her stomach preparing what little it had to be hurled out of her system. She tried to hold it in with everything she had while she took hold of the handle and began to pull. And much like a hot knife through butter, the knife slid clean out of the corpses stomach and into Ruby's hands.

Ruby looked the knife over; it was coated in blood that was so old it appeared to resemble a black crust. The knife was also coated in a fair amount of rust, though it retained a decent enough edge that maybe it could still be useful. Perhaps she could clean it if she had the right materials.

"Ruby? Where are you?" Weiss called out from the ground.

Ruby let out a small gasp. She didn't think Weiss would be returning so soon, much less looking for her. She quickly caught her bearings and replied, "I'm up here."

Weiss jumped, partially because she actually wasn't expecting Ruby to be there to answer her, but also because she didn't expect her to sound like she was up high somewhere. She looked up to where Ruby's voice came from, and her jaw immediately dropped in disbelief. "What the-...how? What are you doing up there? _How_ did you even get up there?"

"I got creative, no thanks to you," Ruby spouted, putting on an antagonistic smirk for Weiss to see.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a deep sigh, but then she began to laugh to herself when she realized something Ruby probably didn't think of. "Okay, so how are you going to get down?" she asked, matching Ruby's grin.

And Weiss was correct, Ruby truly didn't know how to get down. But she didn't want to let it show, even though she was terrible at hiding things. She laughed and rubbed the back of her head while she said, "Hehe, well...um…"

"So you're stuck up there, you think?" Weiss asked, grin turning to an open smile.

"NO! I mean...I have a way," Ruby spouted out. "Yeah, I had it planned since I made it up here." She put on her best winning face to push aside her dwindling confidence.

But Weiss didn't believe a single word of it, although she thought it would be fun to play along and see how much of a fool Ruby can make herself out to be... _This ought to be fun._ She crossed her arms, and told Ruby, "Okay, show me how you'll get down then."

Now Ruby was exactly where she _didn't_ want to be: on the spot, all eyes on her—and those eyes happened to belong to the last person Ruby would want embarrass herself in front of...again. But she also needed to get down anyway, so Ruby put aside her pride for the moment while she cooked up a plan in her head.

But then, it became immediately clear how Ruby could climb down, it was so obvious she was remiss that she didn't think of it sooner. "I could just slide down the tree, like a fireman."

It was settled, but first things first, Ruby took her shirt and tucked the sleeves into the waistband of her shorts; as for the knife, she thought she could hold onto it on her way down. She didn't need much grip on the way down anyhow...or at least she thought so.

Ruby swung around to be on the opposite side of the tree the platform was attached too. She held on by her arms while her feet remained latched onto the floor, the only thing between her and the ground was just air now.

" _Okay...let's do this,"_ Ruby said. She took a quick, deep breath, and eased her footing in the platform edge. She began to slowly descend down to the ground. And Weiss watched Ruby's quick witted plan unfold.

Ruby loosened her grip some, then she tightened it again, and then she loosened, then she tightened. Her sequence would ensure she didn't lose control and come crashing down, and it appeared to be working because she was already halfway down the tree. All was going well, but then she lost her grip on her left foot.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Ruby sprung into a panic as her body swung around to underneath the trees curve, forcing her to keep her arms wrapped around the trunk and hang. " _Well this is just great."_

"Careful, wouldn't want to break your neck now," Weiss said, fully enjoying seeing Ruby struggle.

Ruby nodded her head in annoyance while rolling her eyes. She said, "Yeah, yeah, shut up and help me down!"

"Hey, you were the one who insisted on climbing up there," Weiss argued. "You got yourself up there, you can get yourself down."

"But- but you're the one who found this to begin with!" Ruby fired back. She figured right then that Weiss wasn't going to lend any kind of assistance.

Weiss crossed her arms. "Yes, I did, but I had no intentions whatsoever to test the age of something that was obviously going to fall apart."

"Well, I managed to get up here despite you breaking the ladder, that should count for something," Ruby said, trying to shimmy her way down so she could grab the trunk with her feet again. But before she could even touch her toes against the bark, her arms began to slip, and then she lost her grip entirely. The next thing Ruby knew, she landed on her feet and toppled backwards. " _Uagh"...not again._

Weiss let out an exasperated sigh. She would've turned and began walking back to camp, but truth be told, she was impressed by Ruby's grit and managing to make it up to the platform. She figured Ruby would've just sat out on it. But no, she defied her expectations. It was actually rather grown up, in a still immature way. She rolled her eyes and approached Ruby.

Ruby laid there, again. Her back hurt, again. When she turned her head, she was surprised to see that Weiss had held her hand out to her.

Weiss said, responding to Ruby's earlier statement, "That you did. Now, are you going to get up? Or are you comfortable where you are?"

Ruby blinked, and she almost thought Weiss was going to pull some trick on her. It didn't help that Weiss began to creep her hand back out of Ruby's reach, forcing the girl to act quickly. Before Weiss could get too far, Ruby grabbed a hold. Weiss let go a short huff, and a tiny smirk formed on her face as she pulled Ruby back up on her feet.

"Thanks," Ruby said as she took the shirt from her waistband and brushed off her back.

"Now that you've gotten that out of your system, did you actually find anything up there?" Weiss asked, disregarding the thank you Ruby gave.

" _Oh!_ Yeah, I almost forgot…" Ruby checked around for the knife, realizing she'd dropped it after her fall. She spotted it once again, thankfully, it landed next to the tree trunk. "I found this."

Weiss's eyebrow went high as she looked the knife over. She didn't pay much heed to the muck and rust on the blade, and simply told Ruby, "Well, at least you didn't go up there for nothing." She returned the knife to Ruby and began to make her way back to camp.

"What about you?" Ruby asked her, "Did you find anything on your walk?"

"Nope, not anything useful," Weiss replied, not bothering to stop.

" _Dang,"_ Ruby said.

Ruby followed behind Weiss on their way back to camp. The end of the day was drawing near. They hoped their designated hunters found something to eat and were on their way back soon.


	10. Chapter 10: Sour and Sweet

It was silent back at camp. Yang had returned to Blake with a bundle of sticks some time earlier in the day, and now she was tending to the fire. Neither of them spoke, at least not yet, about the small fight they had. Maybe it was for the best. The last thing they needed was to bring back negativity—there was enough of that already, and the heat and humidity of the day didn't help. She brought back something else too, but that was something she was saving for Ruby when she came back.

Blake continued to scribble in her book, though she was having difficulties keeping her hand straight for one particular pen stroke. She tried turning the book upside down or even using her other hand to make the mark, but it was useless... _Why did I have to draw this with the guy looking down?_

" _Ugh!"_ Blake ripped out the page and crumpled it up. She tried to throw it into the fire, but the wind made it go to the side.

Yang said nothing as she kept breaking apart sticks, figuring she'd save that piece of paper for fire starter should the need arise. It was in a safe place, and she didn't need to bother herself with it.

Blake, however, was hoping Yang would take it and burn it. She hated what she was trying to draw, not exactly _what_ she was drawing, but _how_ it was drawn, and frankly she knew it was easy enough to start over. Although she would have crawled over to pick up the page and try to throw it into the fire again, she wasn't concerned enough about it to risk compromising her leg. But it stop her from once again breaking the silence.

"Um...Yang, could you grab that and burn it, please?" Blake said to her.

Yang stopped what she was doing and looked at the piece of paper, then to Blake, and then back to the paper while she flattly said, "Sure."

Blake watched as Yang crawled over towards the crumbled page, but she didn't throw it into the fire when she picked it up, instead choosing to unravel it and look upon the piece Blake gave up on. She would've protested, but she thought Yang would have something to say about it, though not because she cared to, but partly just an impulsive quirk of hers. But Yang just looked at it without any sign of approbation or displeasure.

Finally, Yang did break her own silence, asking Blake, "Who's this?"

"Just another drawing of someone I met in California," Blake said, "I made one for him before, but I liked it so much I decided to try and draw him again...but as you can see, I didn't do a very good job."

"I think it's pretty good," Yang told her.

Blake closed her book and said, "Thanks, but I'd rather you burn it, I can always start over."

Yang took another look at the picture. After a brief moment, she shook her head and said, "I think I see where you were having trouble—mind if I give it a try?"

As much as Blake wanted to say no and tell her again to burn it, she knew there wasn't much else to do on the island outside of staying alive and moping. So she decided to give in and let Yang borrow one of her pens.

With the pen in hand, Yang straightened out the page as best as she could against her thigh, and once it was as flat as it was going to be again, she angled her drawing utensil would make adequate contact with the paper. She wasn't an artist by any means, but she tried to make her mark as neat as possible against the now-rugged paper. What she came out with seemed satisfactory in her eyes, though she figured Blake would be a better judge, considering she was the one who knew what she wanted the drawing to look like.

"How does this look?" Yang asked, flipping the drawing around so she could see.

Blake let out a deep sigh before indulging her further. Then she closed her eyes as she leaned forward, and as she opened them again, she looked upon the picture to judge how well Yang did...but she shook her head and said, "Not bad, but his chin needs to be a little thinner."

Yang turned the picture back around, tilting her head as she said, " _Mmm..._ oh well, at least there's plenty of time to work on it now." Not long after saying this, she folded the picture up and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she returned the pen.

But Blake refused to accept the pen, and told Yang, "Keep it—might as well if you ever get bored."

Yang almost told her she insisted she took the pen back, but neither she nor Blake were in the mood to debate over something so small. So she nodded and pocketed the pen too.

Then there was silence once again, and Yang had returned to tending to the fire. Blake opened her book back to the part where the drawing had been, and she carefully picked at the tarnished edge to make it look as though there were no page torn out at all.

Blake leaned her head back against the tree shortly after tidying up her art book, letting go another long sigh. She was getting tired of not being able to do anything besides sit where she was. Her leg felt like it was getting better, the aching and pain subsided a lot since the crash, but she was told she couldn't walk on it yet. She thought maybe she had to wait a couple more days, maybe a week, but she wouldn't be walking anytime soon.

"Thanks…" Blake suddenly felt the urge to say. When Yang turned around wondering what she was thanking her for, she reiterated and said, "Thanks for trying to help."

" _Oh..._ with the drawing," Yang said, "Yeah, anytime." She turned around again, but she decided against doing any more for the fire. She'd already made enough kindling to start three more fires. So instead, she decided to take care of what she considered the elephant in the room. "Look, about earlier…"

"What's there to talk about?" Blake interrupted, straightening herself up against the tree.

"Well...I was going to say you were right," Yang said as she sat in front of Blake. "But if you're going to stonewall me then I guess there really isn't anything to talk about." She said this, yet she didn't turn her attention away from Blake.

Blake rolled her eyes with a sigh and said, "You were right about a couple of things. Maybe I wasn't in the best state to be deciding what was best to do...and maybe we could've waited for Ruby to come back. But you still chose to follow through with Jaunes idea, as ill-advised as it might've been."

"So...you agree with my stance that I shouldn't have listened to him?" Yang asked.

Blake shook her head. "I can't say for certain on that, but I can tell you it was immature to put the blame entirely on him." When Yang didn't answer, Blake cleared her throat and tried to make it as simple as possible. "Think of it like this—who is more at fault: the fool, or the one following the fool?"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Yang said, though she laughed more than she expressed annoyance. "Look...can't we just, I don't know, start over?"

"I don't know." Blake drew a breath, but she knew she couldn't be mad at Yang forever after what she considered a simple disagreement, especially when she was trying to make right by it; that and Yang was giving her a look that was just plain adorable to desperate. "Fine, but one condition."

"Shoot," Yang said, looking overjoyed to be moving forward with things.

"Try to be nicer to Jaune, alright, he's doing his best." Blake opened her sketchbook again the moment she finished her sentence.

Yang nodded, and with a new glimmer in her eyes, she said, "Will do." She thought she would have to go and find something else to do, but thankfully she spotted a pair of familiar faces coming their way. She greeted the returning girls with a warm smile. "Hey you two, welcome back!"

Ruby waved at her and said, "Hey, Yang." Weiss kept her silence, like she usually did back at the camp.

As the girls went around and took their spots around the fire, Yang noticed neither of them came back with anything they could eat. "So the walk was a bust?"

Both shrugged, but Ruby said, "Well, not entirely a bust…" she reached behind her back to lift her shirt up and take the knife she found out from her waistband. "We found this."

Ruby handed the knife to Yang, who practically snatched it out of her hand-to which Ruby giggled a bit, because she knew Yang liked knives—and she looked it over as if analyzing it. This was certainly an oddity to find on an island, especially in as good of shape as it was. Though, Yang noticed the dark stains on the blade. "Where'd you find this?"

Ruby rubbed the back of her head. "I found it on top of a platform inside a dead man's chest…" she giggled nervously, and understandably so.

Yang looked at her as though her jaw dropped from her skull, and Weiss and Blake too shared similar expressions. None of them quite knew how to respond to that, and Ruby didn't know how to follow up. It was as if a piano had been dropped and crash landed against the floor with a concussive _bang_ followed by the telltale sound of the strings popping, silence was all that came after; that same awkward silence was present at the camp, and Ruby's statement about the knife was the falling piano.

"You never told me that," Weiss said to Ruby, making herself the one to break the silent pause.

"Uh...I didn't?" Ruby scratched her head as though the thought had gotten away from her, which she realized was an apparent reality. "Huh, I guess not... _he he he…"_

Then Yang spoke up. "So...there was a corpse up there?"

Ruby nodded and took a seat in front of Yang. "Yeah, I guess he was a soldier or something; he wore some kind of uniform. I didn't really make that big a deal out of it, 'cus, you know...he was dead?"

"Maybe he was a Japanese air pilot?" Blake slipped in. She'd managed to orient herself so she would be facing the sisters, now eager to be a part of the conversation. "His plane was probably shot down and he was forced to crash land here."

"Maybe," Ruby said as Yang returned the knife to her. "I know I crash landed a couple times trying to get up there."

"Ill-advised, of course," Weiss cut in as she rolled her eyes. "She's lucky she didn't break her legs."

"Well, _I didn't,_ no thanks to you," Ruby spouted, sticking out her tongue at her shortly after.

"I just wish y'all would've come back with something to eat," Yang said. She let out a soft moan as rubbed her stomach, which growled as if on cue. "Weiss, you couldn't find anything either?"

Weiss shook her head with crossed arms. "Nothing but some crate that hadn't been opened in who knows how long; I opened it, and you know what I found? _Nothing."_

Yang's gaze fell to the ground with dismay, and Blake seemed just as disappointed.

"It just isn't our day today, is it?" Ruby said.

"Nope…" Yang took a rock into hand and tossed it carelessly towards the beach.

Ruby drew a sigh and rubbed her aching neck, one of the few places she could reach to ease her pain from earlier. Then she asked, "So I know you stayed with Blake, did you do anything besides that though?"

Yang scratched the back of her head. "Funny you should ask that…"

* * *

" _Ugh,_ goddamn branches…" _Twip!_ " _Gah!"_ Yang gripped her neck after a branch she knocked away came back at her. While the branch held some leaves that felt sharp, she was glad not to see any blood; that was the last thing she needed, another open wound. She rolled her eyes, putting her grief aside as she kept pushing through the trees.

Eventually, Yang would make it back to the ash-ridden spot Ruby so aptly called _The Patch_. It was strange stepping here though, the rain had rendered the charred earth beneath her to a sort of carbon-mud, such that it was staining her shoes a dark grey... _I guess that explains why Ruby's shoes were so dirty this morning._

Despite the muddy nature of the area, Yang felt the need to kick a rock she'd found, only further dirtying her shoes. It went flying into the opposing treeline, but that didn't matter, because there were more rocks to be kicked, thrown, or otherwise. She found another, bigger rock, and kicked that one. Her toe stung a bit, but it was nothing to her, and the rock went sailing across the clearing.

Once her need to kick things had subsided a little bit, Yang found a dry enough spot to sit down so she could clear her head. She drew a deep sigh as she leaned back and looked up at the clear sky, it was nice to look at, but the heat and humidity made her head throb painfully, and the hunger didn't help. She was more used to the heat when she was actually feeling a hundred percent, but right now she was feeling more like fifty.

Yang slid her hands from the ground and let the rest of her body fall back. Now she layed facing straight up at the sky, taking in the soothing feeling of the rock that was going from lukewarm to cool underneath her. Probably the one good thing about the day by far. She thought it was a good idea to enjoy it while the moment lasted.

At least it _would_ be better if her conscience didn't weigh so heavily from earlier, she didn't think Blake would side against her. After all shes done for her: getting between her and Weiss, saving her from drowning, taking care of her leg. You'd think that would earn gratitude from her, but all she got was spit in her face... _feels like it anyway._

She brought her hands up to rest her head on, putting some space between her and the ground. _Maybe I'm over exaggerating,_ she thought _, maybe I let it get to my head, right?_ She couldn't convince herself of that, of course, but it was something she chose to dwell on while she was here.

 _Grrrrrrrrr_...her stomach growled. Yang rested her hand atop her abdomen to try and sooth her hunger, though it was a losing battle considering her abs reached the point of aching at the touch. " _I feel like I could eat a whole cow, bones and all."_

It wasn't until now that Yang had grown bored of just sitting and doing nothing. She wasn't as angry as she was earlier, but she was still annoyed enough to have the desire to do something with rocks again. So she got back up on her feet and looked around for any unsuspecting stones she had yet to turn. Unfortunately, there weren't any that she could immediately see, just more muddy ash.

Yang decided she would walk around for a bit until another stone presented itself. She also kept her mind busy with what she should say to Blake once she had the will to return to camp. It was difficult, to say the least, when you were dealing with both a disagreement and walking around despite desperate hunger. The heat was another persisting thorn in her side, something she should've been naturally used too on account of her job back home. But no, tropical heat was far different than urban city heat, not that it _was_ hotter, but it was just so wet and muggy.

Although the midsection was torn away, Yang felt very uncomfortable in her now-soaking wannabe crop-top. She growled and said, "Okay, I can't take this anymore; shirts coming off…"

Yang lifted the brim of her shirt the very next moment, then pulling it off the rest of the way. Once it was off, she was relieved to at least feel a little bit cooler than before. She would of course be back to hotter than she'd like, but at least it wouldn't be in a sweaty top. She rung out the shirt first to remove any excess moisture, and then she hung it by its sleeves in her waistband.

The longer Yang walked about _The Patch,_ the more she began to believe that there just wasn't any wildlife to be seen—other than seagulls. There was an eerie silence that made the environment feel devoid of life, and she hardly noticed it until she really took a moment to try and listen for any kind of sound made by birds or whatever other animals sang. _Doesn't help my hopes of Jaune or Pyrrha finding anything on their hunt._

Yang looked up at the trees for a moment. There was one that wasn't a palm tree, and it had a few branches that looked hospitable enough for a motherbird to make a nest. She did indeed find such a nest, but there was no bird, nor eggs, or even egg shells to be seen. Nothing. Just an empty nest made by a bird and seemingly forgotten.

" _Okay..._ that's not creepy at all." Yang continued on down along the treeline.

Eventually, Yang arrived at the spot where the first rock she kicked had landed. She was surprised she was able to find it again, but it was now at her mercy, being an unsuspecting rock in her path.

Yang didn't kick it though. She felt she was past the phase of wanting to kick everything she saw. Now she felt the need to throw something, and this baseball-sized rock was the perfect candidate. She took it into hand and wiped away some of the dirt and ash that stuck to the surface. There wasn't any place in particular she wanted to throw it, but there was a large slab of volcanic rock she was tempted to throw the smaller rock at, just to see what would happen. She knew she had a good arm, "Let's see if I still got it."

And so she took the stance of a pitcher getting ready to throw the ball. She imagined the rock slab was the catcher, primed and ready to receive the ball. She gauged the imaginary line she drew for whichever pitch she decided to throw, and settled on a fastball. With a nod, she reeled her upper body back, lifted her leg up, and then she threw the rock with all the strength her body had the energy to give towards the slab.

 _Whooosh-SMASH!_ The rock shattered on impact. Little chunks of it went flying everywhere.

Yang threw her arms up, and then she punched the air as she said, " _Steeeeriiike! Ha ha!"_

Now she was curious to see the exact amount of damage she was able to do with the rock, having thought she wouldn't even have the strength to throw it so hard. Perhaps it was one of those rocks with a softer shell? Or maybe it was on the verge of cracking, and her throwing it was the literal breaking point. It didn't matter. She did what she wanted, and now she was reaping the benefits of the dopamine high that came with her excitement.

The rock was truly demolished, little more than chunks large and small, and the rest was dust from where it had made impact.

But there was more to it, Yang found. A faint shimmer caught her eye, not quite what she expected from a rock. She knelt down and cleared away the surrounding mud to see what she spotted, and sure enough, the glimmering she found came from a bunch of small, purple crystals within the rock.

Yang smiled with awe. "Ha, holy shit…"

* * *

"...And that's when I found these," Yang reached for her shirt, which was on the ground in the sun to dry, but she also wrapped it around something extra that she brought back. She unwrapped the shirt, and inside laid the geode crystals.

" _Woah!"_ Ruby quickly reached in and grabbed the first one she touched. "Yang, do you have any idea what these are?!"

Yang laughed and shook her head. "Nope, but I know it's shiny, and I know you're going to tell me."

"You...got...an _AMETHYST GEODE!"_ Ruby started jumping excitedly with the geode clenched against her chest.

Blake looked at them both with impossible confusion. She knew what Ruby was talking about, but she didn't know why she was getting so excited. She felt the need to ask, "Wait, what's going on?"

"Ruby likes geodes," Yang said flatly, "I don't know much about them, but she goes _nuts_ over them." She let out a chuckle as Ruby continued to jump with joy.

Then Weiss stepped forward, waving her hands rapidly. "Hold on one moment-are we really going to gloss over the fact that you and Blake had an argument after we gone away?" She was glad this got Ruby's attention, as she quit jumping and adopted a more concerned expression.

Yang didn't know what to say, and neither did Ruby. An unsettling pause rippled through the space of the camp, and practically turned from awful humid to blistering cold as Weiss glared at the blonde with ire.

"Well...uh...it was like…" Yang stammered over her words, but her train of thought crashed once again and she was resigned to silence.

"She came back and apologized," Blake said, coming to Yangs aid. "So all is good now."

" _Really?"_ Weiss crossed her arms once again and leaned forward just slightly. "And what if you two get into another argument and she walks off again? What then?"

Then Ruby came to Yang's defense. "Weiss, I'm sure it wasn't that big a deal. Yang came back, she apologized, and Blake says it's all good now."

" _And_ I promise it won't happen again," Yang added.

Weiss could see now that she was once again in a corner. All she could do was roll her eyes and walk off to make her spot on the other end of the camp, away from them. She knew all too well though that this wouldn't blow over so easily, and she could see it in both of the sisters eyes.

Once again there was silence, only the crackling of the fire kept strong, though Yang was tempted to put an end to her hard work and put it out altogether. It was just too hot. But if Jaune and Pyrrha were to come back with something, it was better to keep the fire going.

But the silence was boring, and Yang was past the point of letting it continue. So she brought up the first thing that was on her mind.

"You know what I find weird about this place?" She asked to anyone who might have bothered to listen.

One such person was Ruby. "What?"

"You'd think we would've seen some more animals besides crabs and seagulls." Yang brought herself to sitting cross legged as she continued to explain, "Don't you think we would've seen some animals by now—jaguars or something along those lines?"

Ruby shrugged. "I try not to think about it…" she put her hands forth, palms facing up, "what's worse, do you think: being stuck on an island full of dangerous predators, or not knowing you're on an island full of dangerous predators?"

"That's not what I meant…" Yang leaned forward and tried to make herself clear. "It just feels like this place is...I don't know, it just doesn't feel right."

Ruby scooted forward. "How do you mean?"

"I mean...like…" Yang closed her eyes and gave herself a moment to think, but she herself thought anything she _could_ say would just sound ridiculous. She opened her eyes again, and she decided to just tell Ruby. "Remember how I said there was an abandoned nest at The Patch? Well, it got me thinking that we haven't seen any birds or nothing since we got here, or any animals for that matter."

"So? Maybe they just migrated to another part of the island, Yang, that's what animals do, they migrate." Ruby let out a giggle not long after she said this. Frankly, she thought Yang was just hungry—she felt all too well the same way.

Yang drew a deep sigh, and shown her concession with the dropping of her head. She bobbed her neck up and down as she told Ruby, "Alright, you're right, I'm just being ridiculous."

Then Ruby rested her hand on Yangs shoulder. "Hey, it's alright. And look on the bright side: when—or if—Jaune and Pyrrha come back with something to eat, it'll all be out of mind." She gave Yang her signature toothy grin, and she was glad that is drew a smile from her too.

Yang's smile wouldn't last long though, and it disappeared not long after her sister turned away so she could work on cleaning the knife—the only sign of life that was on this island. Though she knew it would easily be construed as conspiracy if she tried to argue that the dead man was connected to the utter lack of life there was here.

Although Ruby might've been right, it was perfectly natural for animals to move around and find new spots to settle before having to move again. With that in mind, she thought it was best she dropped it.

There were still a number of things Yang knew she still wanted answered: namely the crate Weiss said she'd found. It left her confounded that she found something so obviously out of place, and yet it held _nothing_ of use to them. She had the intention of turning around and asking about it, and she did, but before she could get a word out, she spotted two more faces that appeared from the opposite side of the camp—and she was happy to see them.

"Hey! Look who's back!" Yang cheered as Jaune and Pyrrha strode in. The two designated hunters held their spears over their shoulders, and they appeared to have had something on them. "Did y'all catch anything?"

Pyrrha giggled a little bit, and she turned towards Jaune as she said, "Well, we didn't catch fish, if that's what you're asking…" then a grin curled across her lips as she then added, "but we _did_ catch something better."

The other girls became an audience as the two took their spears from their shoulders and displayed their catch, which comprised of a bunch of fruit shiskobabbed along the end. The four were simply dumbfounded.

"Where did all this come from?!" Ruby gasped. She was trying to hide her drooling mouth, but was failing miserably.

Once again, Pyrrha laughed as she told her, "Why don't you ask Jaune?"

And so Ruby—as well as the others—looked toward the stumbling boy, who rubbed his neck nervously as he stammered over his words.

"It was actually just dumb luck, honestly…" He said this, but everyone was still looking at him like they were going to eat him if he didn't explain further, so he elaborated, "Alright, it was like this…"

* * *

Jaune and Pyrrha were walking back from the lake, wholly disappointed that their hunting venture didn't yield anything. They had spent several hours trying to spear fish, but to no avail, and now they were walking in shame, empty handed, and now deprived of any hope that they'd be eating any time soon. The only comfort they had on their returning path was the shade that covered the entire coastline, which left them walking along cool sand and through semi-cool air.

"I can't believe we didn't catch anything," Jaune whined. He was slumped over while he carried he and Pyrrha's clothes, which they never bothered to put back on because they were too dejected to care.

"We tried our best," Pyrrha told him, but even she was having difficulty believing her own words. It was their first time trying something so unconventional, but a part of her thought that they could've done better—or at least _she_ could've done better. She knew thinking like this wouldn't do her any good, nor Jaune, so she thought she'd try to lighten things up. "You can't deny it was pretty intense though, right?"

Jaune nodded. "Yeah, it was…"

"I had fun," Pyrrha added. "Didn't you?"

But Jaune drew a deep sigh. Of course he had fun, it was probably the most fun he had in a long time, in a very unorthodox way, but he still worried about the rest of the groups reactions. He told Pyrrha as much, " _Yeah_ , I did, but how do you think Yang and them will react if we didn't come back with anything?"

"Jaune, it's not like we were expected to come back with bounds of fish," Pyrrha said, trying her best to reassure him. "I understand you and Yang haven't been seeing eye to eye since we got here, but I doubt she would hold it against either of us—much less you—for trying and failing to help the group."

He thought about it for a moment, but he only found himself torn in different directions: he really didn't want to deal with more of Yang's criticism, he knew Pyrrha was right but couldn't bring himself to admit it, and he was more disappointed in himself than he let on—particularly due to hunger being on his mind the whole time. While he was stuck in his head, he'd unintentionally left Pyrrha with nothing but silence to be perceived as his answer.

"Jaune…"

" _Rrrrrg-agh!"_ Jaune threw his spear in anger, forcing both Pyrrha to silence and himself to vent. "Pyrrha, I appreciate you trying to help make me feel better, but I am still _starving,_ Yang will _still be upset—_ as well as the _rest_ of the group—and I am just too tired to care about it all right now! So _please_ , can I just mope in peace?"

Pyrrha just stared at him, shocked by his sudden burst of hysteria and frustration. She could feel her whole body grow cold all of a sudden, and a shaky feeling set in, she felt her hands trembling. She was afraid, and had it not been for Jaune acting out the way he did, she probably would've sucked it up and walked over to console him: but she chose not to, for fear he might not react the way she thought he would. But fear soon turned to sadness, and she too shared in her own form of grief over herself.

After taking a few deep breaths, Jaune sighed on the final one and turned towards Pyrrha. He was not angry anymore, but he could see the girl was still afraid, and he did that to her. He thought he could make out a tear welling in her eye. Pyrhha might not have been familiar with this, but Jaune was, and it was the second time he'd left someone feeling like this when they were only trying to help him, and he did not want to leave Pyrrha this way too.

"I...I'm sorry," Jaune said, his voice breaking slightly. "I shouldn't have shouted like that."

Pyrrha drew a sharp breath through her nose in an attempt to swallow down her feelings, something she found inherently difficult to hide, and tried to say as calmly as she could manage, "It's fine...let's just...let's just get back to camp."

Jaune would've said more, but he feared now that saying anything else would just make things worse. So he nodded his head, reluctantly, and told her, "I gotta find my spear—give me a sec." He turned and was making his way into the trees the next moment.

And so Pyrrha stood there, alone, left to wallow in her own grief, which she felt better about letting out now that she was alone for what could be a short while. She let that tear Jaune noticed fall down her cheek, and yet it was the only one to fall. She could feel her chest convulsing, and her heart aching to cry, but nothing more came of it.

She wiped the tear from her chin. It was always just one tear. One tiny speck that served as her only reminder that she could feel the way she did, even if only for too short a time. She knew she could be as consoling and as earnest as possible to be the strong friend, but she also knew she couldn't completely shove down the emotions from the other, darker side of the spectrum. It was especially difficult now, only the rest of the group hadn't been able to spot it. However, Jaune now was a step ahead of the others, and she knew that.

Speaking of Jaune, after a long period of nothing to show if he was still nearby or not, Pyrrha heard a loud scream.

" _OOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA!"_

"Jaune!?" Pyrrha gasped, not quite sure if she should be concerned.

"Pyrrha! Get over here quick!" Jaune called back. He sounded excited.

Pyrrha wasted no time and came running. She dropped her own spear and dashed through the tree line, jumping over whatever brush and bushes stood in her way.

Then she found Jaune, and next to him stood both his spear lodged into the ground, as well as a tall plant with a common and truly delectable tropical fruit. One that everyone loved.

* * *

The group all sat in a circle around the fire, eating slices of pineapple with such great vigor that a couple of them almost forgot to swallow. They were all glad to finally be eating something after so long, no matter how much the sourness came near to stinging their mouths.

" _Mmm…Righ haf-" gulp, "_ Ahh, I have to be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to having fish," Ruby said, quickly returning to eating her pineapple soon after.

"But wasn't it your idea for us to get fish with those spears you made?" Jaune asked.

"Well... _yeah_ , but I'm not a big fan of fish." Ruby giggled sheepishly, putting on a childish grin.

Then Weiss joined the conversation, breaking her long silence. "So you mean to tell us you wouldn't have eaten even if that's what they came back with?"

"Hey, I ate crab, I don't have any problem eating shrimp or lobster either, I just don't like fish." But Ruby saw the look in Weiss's eye after she said this, and it told her she refused to believe it. And so Ruby caved, making her admission, "Okay...I'll eat fish if I _have to_."

"I thought so," Weiss said with a smug grin. She was about to take another bite, but then she noticed an intruding, long stick shafted through a skinned pineapple come between she and Ruby over the fire. She followed the stick to find Yang as the one holding it. " _Cooking_ pineapple?"

"Yeah, I like it when its not as bitter," Yang said as she turned the stick around in her hand like a roasting spit. Then she began to laugh as she said, "I thought Ruby might like it, but she cried that it was burnt, _ha-ha-ha._ "

"But it _was_ burned, Yang!" Ruby threw a piece of pineapple shell at her. "Anything that has to do with fruits or vegetables, you cook them into coal!"

" _Pssh,_ no I don't—everything I cook is done _just_ right." Yang proceeded to take a large chunk off of her pineapple, which lead to a grotesque display of juice and charred bits rolling down her chin. She then proceeded to chew with her mouth still partially open, and then only managing to swallow half while she worked on the rest. Although, much to the rest of the groups dismay, she decided to work it into her next quip, " _Yerp, pershect."_

But no-one else was quite so pleased to see it, and two appeared to react in different ways: Jaune looked as though he was going to throw up, and Weiss simply was not impressed—which she aptly showed by resting her face in her palm.

Ruby let out a soft chuckle, she was still disgusted, but she could also deal with her sister where others might not. "Remind me again how we're related?"

Yang swallowed some more, but there was still a chunk of pineapple left in her mouth. " _We harf she shame faher..."_ then she finally swallowed the rest.

"Good point," Ruby said, her chuckling moving into full laughter. She was more laughing at herself for being able to still understand what Yang said while her mouth was full.

And that's when Jaune's gag reflex finally won out, and he got up and made for the beach. He was ankle deep in the water by the time he let out a wretched splurge of yellow-stained bile. Suffice to say, everything had left him just as quickly as he ate it, and then some.

" _Ewg_...okay, uh...I guess my brand of humor not for everyone, _he-he-he._ " Yang rubbed the back of her head while wearing a not so apologetic smile. And yet, she still brought herself to yell out, "Sorry Jaune!" She wouldn't receive any answer, nor did she expect one anyway.

Blake seemed to be in Ruby's position as far as handling unsightly displays was concerned. Although she remained quiet for most of the meal, she fit in a couple laughs, but never enough to be acknowledged. She just ate her pineapple in peace, and liked it no matter how unwieldy things got. Though it wasn't all peaceful, not in a conflicting way, but her tired mind was still processing everything that occurred today, and two things stuck out: the knife Ruby found in a corpse, and the crate Weiss said she found. It was common knowledge for anyone who's ever been in high school history that the Pacific islands were used for air force bases during World War II: but this island—as far as she could tell by how long the pairs were gone and back—seemed too small to house such an installation. Apart from what could've been a pilot whose plane was shot down, she had no other conclusions to make.

But she didn't like things she couldn't solve, so against her better judgement, Blake turned and reluctantly asked, "Hey...Weiss, are you sure you didn't find anything in the crate?"

Weiss answered her almost as swiftly as a rapier in a thrust. "I'm certain."

But Blake was not fooled, and she felt compelled to pry. "Was there anything of note _in_ the crate?"

"Nothing useful," Weiss said with narrowed eyes. "But if you must know, there was some kind of old machine and a file inside."

"That's it?"

"Yes," Weiss reaffirmed more clearly.

Blake took a moment to think, then her thoughts went to the file she mentioned. "What did the file say?"

It was at this point that the other group members started to listen in on their conversation—probably surprised the two haven't started to fight yet. Weiss noticed this, but she knew there wasn't much else she could do with regards to Blake, after all, she's since gotten over that spree. Though she still didn't get why knowing every little thing about the crate she found was so important, but she decided to humor her if it meant she would soon be quiet and they could continue eating. "It was washed out—the only thing I could make out was what I guess is a part of a name, _Dr. Am,_ and then it cuts off."

Blake pinched her chin. "I see…" then her attention went to Yang, and then a returning Jaune. "Guys, how would you feel if we recovered that crate Weiss found?"

"Wait, a crate?" Jaune asked as he returned from the beach, wiping his mouth. "What did I miss?"

"I think it's worth a go if it means we get to understand this island better," Pyrrha said, having grown intrigued by Weiss's story.

Yang nodded. "Agreed, and Jaune and I can move it if it's not too heavy."

"Yeah, and Pyrrha and I can go with you if you guys need help," Ruby chimed in.

But Pyrrha shook her head and told her, "Blake can't be left alone, her leg still needs to heal, and who knows how long we would be gone?"

"Weiss could always stay here," Ruby argued. "She's the only one who hasn't helped with Blake's leg anyway."

"Hey!" Weiss cried. But no-one paid mind to her.

She thought about it for a moment, but Pyrrha knew they would find the crate a lot faster if they had Weiss along with them. For her, it was a done deal, and she told Ruby as much. "I'm sorry, but it will be much faster if Weiss came along: she knows where it is, we can get there and come back sooner than without her."

As much as she wanted to protest, because she really loved the idea of going on a treasure hunt, Ruby couldn't argue with Pyrrha's logic, and when she turned to Yang for assistance, she could see it in her eyes that her sister agreed. She sighed like an angered child and said, " _Fine…"_

Weiss rolled her eyes, and much to everyone's surprise, she nodded and said, "Alright, I'll take point."

Blake smiled, and as she looked around to see the nodding of their heads—save for Jaune, who pretty much resigned to going along with it—she proudly said, "It's settled then: tomorrow you will go and find that crate and bring it back here."

"Sounds good / Great / Awesome / Swell." Everyone said at once.

* * *

After such a long and arduous day, the group had finished eating their dinner and begun the process of going to sleep. One by one they slowly dozed off, the first of which being Blake and Yang, the latter choosing to lay against the same tree as the former. Weiss too had gone to sleep, resting her head on one of the bags that had surfaced. Jaune and Pyrrha were still awake, at least to a degree, most likely not quite ready to go to sleep just yet, and they were talking about something just out of earshot.

Ruby was still awake too, though unlike Jaune and Pyrrha, she had a purpose for being awake still, because she was rifling through her backpack looking for her journal. She'd forgotten how deep she buried it, having to rummage through some socks and a poncho she meant to roll up before departing, but she found it in no time.

"It's about time I finished the day with a final entry…" Ruby said to herself as she grabbed the pen from the spine of her journal. She turned to the page she wrote in earlier and began to write:

 _Continued..._

 _Thank God for fruit. Part of me has chills wondering what it would be like if Jaune and Pyrrha didn't find the pineapples we had—we all would be starving for another day, that's for sure._

 _I'm a little ticked off about something though. Yang had an argument with Blake and left her alone. I mean...I get it, but still, what if a jaguar or something came and attacked her? Or what if she came down with something suddenly and Yang wasn't there? I'm glad she came back and apologized, but my annoyance right now feels like it's standing 2 to 1._

 _I guess I can't stay mad forever, but if I was having doubts about Yang's leadership before, I am really considering confronting her about it soon. I still wanna give her a chance, one more at least. It's a new day tomorrow, and now that we finally found some food we can start fresh._

 _For now though, what I really want is sleep. I almost broke my back twice over—and I'm still sore from it—and I've had my fill of surprises for one day._

 _That's all._

With that, Ruby clicked her pen and stuffed it back into the spine, then closing her journal and returning it into her pack. She gave the camp one last lookaround, Jaune and Pyrrha appeared to be halfway to dozing off, and the fire was part way to dying. She thought their rest was well deserved, as was the same for herself. So she finally went to sleep, and the remaining two were quick to follow.


End file.
